Knockemstiff
by Donald Ray Pollock
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Book Summary Information
Author: Donald Ray PollockEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-10
ISBN: 076792830X
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of Knockemstiff
Book Review: Moving, Memorable, & disturbing, even to a Horror writer
Summary: 5 Stars
So many have reviewed this and added such great comments, I was reluctant to comment, but what's going on in this book is subtle at times, but no less genius. When a writer can make you pity, even relate to, a coward, a brute, and a loser, all in two paragraphs, then something special is going on. I'm one who doesn't see much humor here, mostly just the darkness dwelling in humanity and small communities like ours, but I think where people may see humor is that as bad as most folk may suffer in this book, you don't really see many entertain self pity, at least not for long, and they shrug off the horrible like a horse shakes off the horse fly, even though the horse knows it's coming back for another bite soon. As a writer myself from just over the hill from Knockemstiff who has yet to personally meet Donald Pollock though our books have set side by side in a local book store, I was stunned at the level of darkness that seeped through these pages. There are no monsters here, unless they are some of the people themselves, though many of them are more of the Frankenstein type, monsters that manage to evoke sympathy or at least understanding. Having frequented many of these same spots a generation after the author, I can attest to the accuracy he captures in regard to the fatal lives people in our area and other places like it can sometimes suffer. While these are all works of fiction, Publisher's Weekly said they had an aura of truth, and that they do. I was shocked when I tried to read aloud the final paragraphs of the last story to my wife and I nearly broke down. Reflecting on it, I have to chalk it up to great writing that tapped into my own hidden levels more than anything, but life here can be hard in many ways, and I felt as if he was opening up dark corners of my own life experiences that I thought nobody else could understand. I found it inspiring to see that someone else knew what complex, miserable loving relationships entailed, and how they managed to just keep going on long after everybody knew they were unhealthy and never getting any better.
The bad reviews here merely point out that many readers today really don't recognize good prose and powerful writing when they see it. Most college students can't even write a coherent paper today ( words of professors from Harvard, not mine), but the internet, texting revolution has cost the appreciation of true composition and storytelling. I found these stories to go by quickly, but the lives within are not milk and honey visions. Two reviewers even went on about how the book had disturbed them and revolted them, affected them more than anything they had read; how it seemed so real basically, that it bummed them out, then gave it one star ratings. Stephen King would kill for ravings like that, so would I. As an artist, to create an emotion in the reader is the ultimate accomplishment. News papers relate facts, writers tell stories, but great authors do all that and create emotion, as Donald Pollock has done here. "Wuthering Heights," "Gone With The Wind," "Schindler's List," and most anything Hemingway wrote were not sunshine happy tales, yet they illuminated the humor spirit in the light of suffering, suffering much deeper than most of us will ever endure. By watching them endure tragedy, our daily dramas become more manageable. There is a lot of redeeming values in this work if you're educated enough to build empathy for people you don't fully understand.
The language in this book is handled as well as Mark Twain dealt with dialogue from his neck of the woods, indeed with better effect than what Mark did with Huck Finn, which can get cumbersome. Here, Donald gives you just enough to hear the people in reality without bashing you over the head with constant profanity. What really should make you read this, is to see just how resilient the human spirit can be, to witness how much those born into poverty endure on a daily basis, and how people with everything against them just can't bring themselves to fully surrender to the darkness all around them. Yes Publisher's Weekly, having drank on a log at Haps Bar myself, this is the aura of truth you alluded to. Real or imagined people in Knockemstiff won't give up, even when they know they probably should.
Every artist that sticks his neck out like this always gets it from both ends, but time is usually the ultimate judge. I'd wager my kids will be reading this book in 16 years, and they had better get an A+ in that college course.
Summary of Knockemstiff
In this unforgettable work of fiction, Donald Ray Pollock peers into the soul of a tough Midwestern American town to reveal the sad, stunted but resilient lives of its residents. Knockemstiff is a genuine entry into the literature of place.Spanning a period from the mid-sixties to the late nineties, the linked stories that comprise Knockemstiff feature a cast of recurring characters who are irresistibly, undeniably real. A father pumps his son full of steroids so he can vicariously relive his days as a perpetual runner-up body builder. A psychotic rural recluse comes upon two siblings committing incest and feels compelled to take action. Donald Ray Pollock presents his characters and the sordid goings-on with a stern intelligence, a bracing absence of value judgments, and a refreshingly dark sense of bottom-dog humor.Amazon Significant Seven, March 2008: A quick Internet search for "Knockemstiff, Ohio" reveals a lazy nexus of shabby houses and dirt roads in southern Ohio, lacking a post office and grocery store, but rich in legends of epic fistfights and swamp-dwelling ghosts. Donald Ray Pollock, a native of this "ghost town," populates his own Knockemstiff with living revenants: huffers, murderers, sex fiends, and their hapless (though not innocent) victims, all tethered to the woebegone "holler" by their own self-inflicted shortcomings and depravities. Pollock pulls no punches--his prose is blunt and visceral, as well as stylish and skilled--and reading these mini grand guignols can be like crunching on a mouthful of your own broken teeth. He resists casting judgment (or sympathy) on his doomed reprobates; predator or prey (or sometimes both), Pollock contemplates his characters with all the warmth of a "frozen bleach bottle." It's an astonishing debut. --Jon Foro
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