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Knockemstiff
Knockemstiff is the world of Vernon God Little by a writer who depicts poor America like no other. Donald Ray Pollock is an astonishing new voice in American fiction.
206 pages, Hardcover
First published March 18, 2008
435 people are currently reading
12039 people want to read
About the author
Donald Ray Pollock
19books2,073followersDonald Ray Pollock was born in 1954 and grew up in southern Ohio, in a holler named Knockemstiff. He dropped out of high school at seventeen to work in a meatpacking plant, and then spent thirty-two years employed in a paper mill in Chillicothe, Ohio. He graduated from the MFA program at Ohio State University in 2009, and still lives in Chillicothe with his wife, Patsy. His first book, Knockemstiff, won the 2009 PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Third Coast, The Journal, Sou’wester, Chiron Review, River Styx, Boulevard, Folio, Granta, NYTBR, Washington Square, and The Berkeley Fiction Review. The Devil All the Time is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,412 reviews
August 14, 2023
ا⛧ا⛧
About 60 miles south of Columbus, Ohio, where cold flames flicker upon the ashes of hope, and the stink of despair and rotten eggs suffocates the air, hangs a piece of plywood that says: "WELCOME TO KNOCKEMSTIFF." If you'll ask me, they should've added "abandon all hope ye who enter here" to that sign. That was the first thought that ran through my head right after I finished reading 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘙𝘢𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬's 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐟.
Theplace described in the book seems to hold an honorary degree in natural science for stratigraphy of rock bottom. As I finished reading its last pages, a sense of relief washed over me, as if I had just woken up from a 3 AM nightmare and the comforting realization of it being nothing but a bleak dream started to slowly sink into my consciousness.
This powerful, gritty collection of 18 short stories, all connected geographically and through characters, is authentic and brutal yet utterly transcendent. It lingers. 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬's gripping, raw writing drenched me with a rollercoaster of thoughts and feelings of both dread and laughter, and sucked me right into bleak burial grounds for broken dreams and crippled souls of the characters in each of these stories. While some of them were rotten and damaged beyond repair, others still hoped to leave St. Redneck and build a better life for themselves, and I rooted for them. However, 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬 has weaved a tragic world with a starless sky where poverty leads to brutal violence, addictions, and acts of despair, and yet, it seems like it is rooted in the human condition to dream and keep a glimmer of hope, even in the worst of situations.
I tend to be selective when it comes to collections of short stories, as they often feel uneven to me. However, this is without a doubt one of the best I've read in a while.
Enter and ascend.
*𝐁𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 @𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐃 𝐚𝐧𝐝 @𝐋𝐞𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞*
About 60 miles south of Columbus, Ohio, where cold flames flicker upon the ashes of hope, and the stink of despair and rotten eggs suffocates the air, hangs a piece of plywood that says: "WELCOME TO KNOCKEMSTIFF." If you'll ask me, they should've added "abandon all hope ye who enter here" to that sign. That was the first thought that ran through my head right after I finished reading 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘙𝘢𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬's 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐟.
Theplace described in the book seems to hold an honorary degree in natural science for stratigraphy of rock bottom. As I finished reading its last pages, a sense of relief washed over me, as if I had just woken up from a 3 AM nightmare and the comforting realization of it being nothing but a bleak dream started to slowly sink into my consciousness.
This powerful, gritty collection of 18 short stories, all connected geographically and through characters, is authentic and brutal yet utterly transcendent. It lingers. 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬's gripping, raw writing drenched me with a rollercoaster of thoughts and feelings of both dread and laughter, and sucked me right into bleak burial grounds for broken dreams and crippled souls of the characters in each of these stories. While some of them were rotten and damaged beyond repair, others still hoped to leave St. Redneck and build a better life for themselves, and I rooted for them. However, 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬 has weaved a tragic world with a starless sky where poverty leads to brutal violence, addictions, and acts of despair, and yet, it seems like it is rooted in the human condition to dream and keep a glimmer of hope, even in the worst of situations.
I tend to be selective when it comes to collections of short stories, as they often feel uneven to me. However, this is without a doubt one of the best I've read in a while.
Enter and ascend.
*𝐁𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 @𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐃 𝐚𝐧𝐝 @𝐋𝐞𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞*
May 3, 2012
Here's a Life Coaching tip:
If you're given the choice between living in Knockemstiff, Ohio, or having your naughty bits gnawed to shreds by a ravenous honey badger�
…t correct selection is B.
This is my first experience with Donald Ray Pollock experience, and I'm already a devout admirer of his talent as a storyteller. This is terrific stuff...but, ho doggie, can this man write himself into your happy zone and shit bleak all over it. Seriously, Knockemstiff is unrelentingly grim. The setting, the people, the stories described by Pollock are so depressed, so downtrodden, and so hopelessly trapped in a cycle of economic hardship and misery that reading this can truly mess with your wellbeing.
However, despite the unpleasantness, this is just wonderful.
What makes this work so powerful is that Pollock completely eschews melodrama. His characters, beyond a few passing thoughts, rarely reflect upon the disconsolate nature of their existence. To them, this is life, and we, as readers, are just catching snapshots of the endless cavalcade of setbacks, heartaches and generational misfortune that make up the detritus of their existence.
Pollock writes with painful authenticity, and his stories, while never reaching for the cheap payoff, will linger and stain you with the casual, brutality that he describes. His characters and dialogue ring true and he saturates his stories with the sights, sounds and smells of Knockemstiff.
He takes you there...even when you don't really want to go.
PLOT SUMMARY:
There are 18 stories in this collection, all semi-linked to one another, and each focusing on ignorance, intolerance, drug addiction, or some other dark, violent aspect of rural life. Rather than briefly describe each story, some of which would be hard to do without spoilers, I thought I would just touch on a few of my favorites to give you a sense of the material.
Beginning with the first story, Real Life, in which a violent incident at a drive in movie begins the gradual transformation of a sensitive, caring young boy, into the image of his abusive, alcoholic father. Told simply, eloquently, and without emotional emphasis, Pollock sets the stage for the entire collection with the opening of this story,"My father showed me how to hurt a man one August night at the Torch Drive-in when I was seven years old. It was the only thing he was ever good at." From there, I was hooked.
Another memorable piece was Dynamite Hole, which I thought was the darkest story in the collection (man is that saying something). Here's how Pollock, who has a knack for grabbing the reader with his initial paragraph, opens this little ditty:
Schott's Bridge may be my favorite of the lot. A powerful, brutally poignant story about how horrendously unlucky it is to be gay in Knockemstiff. Unbelievable loneliness transformed into unendurable desolation by a truly despicable action of savagery. The way Pollock ended this story was masterful.
Other stories deal with OxyContin addiction, massive steroid use, rape, incest, murder, and random acts of nastiness.
THOUGHTS:
Pollock's stories haunt...they linger...they stain.
I suspect I will be thinking, recalling, waking up in a cold sweat screaming about moments from Knockemstiff for a long time to come. The topics addressed within are among the worst of the worst that community life has to offer, but to his enormous credit, Pollock avoids gratuitousness throughout.His stories need no gimmickry to devastate you.
Pollock's voice is unique, and I was very impressed by this collection. If you haven't read him yet, you really should.
4.0 to 4.5 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION.
If you're given the choice between living in Knockemstiff, Ohio, or having your naughty bits gnawed to shreds by a ravenous honey badger�
…t correct selection is B.
This is my first experience with Donald Ray Pollock experience, and I'm already a devout admirer of his talent as a storyteller. This is terrific stuff...but, ho doggie, can this man write himself into your happy zone and shit bleak all over it. Seriously, Knockemstiff is unrelentingly grim. The setting, the people, the stories described by Pollock are so depressed, so downtrodden, and so hopelessly trapped in a cycle of economic hardship and misery that reading this can truly mess with your wellbeing.
However, despite the unpleasantness, this is just wonderful.
What makes this work so powerful is that Pollock completely eschews melodrama. His characters, beyond a few passing thoughts, rarely reflect upon the disconsolate nature of their existence. To them, this is life, and we, as readers, are just catching snapshots of the endless cavalcade of setbacks, heartaches and generational misfortune that make up the detritus of their existence.
Pollock writes with painful authenticity, and his stories, while never reaching for the cheap payoff, will linger and stain you with the casual, brutality that he describes. His characters and dialogue ring true and he saturates his stories with the sights, sounds and smells of Knockemstiff.
He takes you there...even when you don't really want to go.
PLOT SUMMARY:
There are 18 stories in this collection, all semi-linked to one another, and each focusing on ignorance, intolerance, drug addiction, or some other dark, violent aspect of rural life. Rather than briefly describe each story, some of which would be hard to do without spoilers, I thought I would just touch on a few of my favorites to give you a sense of the material.
Beginning with the first story, Real Life, in which a violent incident at a drive in movie begins the gradual transformation of a sensitive, caring young boy, into the image of his abusive, alcoholic father. Told simply, eloquently, and without emotional emphasis, Pollock sets the stage for the entire collection with the opening of this story,"My father showed me how to hurt a man one August night at the Torch Drive-in when I was seven years old. It was the only thing he was ever good at." From there, I was hooked.
Another memorable piece was Dynamite Hole, which I thought was the darkest story in the collection (man is that saying something). Here's how Pollock, who has a knack for grabbing the reader with his initial paragraph, opens this little ditty:
I was coming down off the Mitchell Flats with three arrowheads in my pocket and a dead copperhead hung around my neck like an old woman's scarf when I caught a boy named Truman Mackey fucking his own little sister in the Dynamite Hole.From there, it gets disturbing as our narrator...well, you'll see. The story is all the more unsettling because Pollock delivers it with such casualness.
Schott's Bridge may be my favorite of the lot. A powerful, brutally poignant story about how horrendously unlucky it is to be gay in Knockemstiff. Unbelievable loneliness transformed into unendurable desolation by a truly despicable action of savagery. The way Pollock ended this story was masterful.
Other stories deal with OxyContin addiction, massive steroid use, rape, incest, murder, and random acts of nastiness.
THOUGHTS:
Pollock's stories haunt...they linger...they stain.
I suspect I will be thinking, recalling, waking up in a cold sweat screaming about moments from Knockemstiff for a long time to come. The topics addressed within are among the worst of the worst that community life has to offer, but to his enormous credit, Pollock avoids gratuitousness throughout.His stories need no gimmickry to devastate you.
Pollock's voice is unique, and I was very impressed by this collection. If you haven't read him yet, you really should.
4.0 to 4.5 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION.
June 15, 2012
Knockemstiff is a collection of 18 short stories set in Knockemstiff, Ohio.
Reviewing a book of short stories is a tricky business, especially if you haven't been reviewing them as you go. Furthermore, I'm not a huge short story fan so I don't read collections unless one comes along that will knock my pants off and sell them to the highest bidder before I get a chance to put them back on. Knockemstiff is that short story collection.
Eighteen stories of redneckery most foul are contained in this book. Some are funny, some are sad, all are powerful. Even the funnier stories have a sad undercurrent to them, like the citizens of Knockemstiff know they don't have much of a chance.
The tales are connected by common characters and the setting. Donald Ray Pollock paints a bleak picture of life in a tiny redneck town, though it isn't totally devoid of happiness. As for the tales themselves, I can't even begin to narrow down which one is my favorite. It's not every day you read a short story collection that features washed up bodybuilders, drug dealers, and a kid that gets caught having sex with his sister's doll in the outhouse.
To be honest, I was picturing Knockemstiff to have a feel akin to Winter's Bone. Instead, it reminds of Joe Lansdale's Texas tales. Since Pollock named the bar owner Hap Collins, I doubt the resemblance is completely unintentional.
I can't recommend this book enough. This is one of the easiest five stars I've ever awarded.
Reviewing a book of short stories is a tricky business, especially if you haven't been reviewing them as you go. Furthermore, I'm not a huge short story fan so I don't read collections unless one comes along that will knock my pants off and sell them to the highest bidder before I get a chance to put them back on. Knockemstiff is that short story collection.
Eighteen stories of redneckery most foul are contained in this book. Some are funny, some are sad, all are powerful. Even the funnier stories have a sad undercurrent to them, like the citizens of Knockemstiff know they don't have much of a chance.
The tales are connected by common characters and the setting. Donald Ray Pollock paints a bleak picture of life in a tiny redneck town, though it isn't totally devoid of happiness. As for the tales themselves, I can't even begin to narrow down which one is my favorite. It's not every day you read a short story collection that features washed up bodybuilders, drug dealers, and a kid that gets caught having sex with his sister's doll in the outhouse.
To be honest, I was picturing Knockemstiff to have a feel akin to Winter's Bone. Instead, it reminds of Joe Lansdale's Texas tales. Since Pollock named the bar owner Hap Collins, I doubt the resemblance is completely unintentional.
I can't recommend this book enough. This is one of the easiest five stars I've ever awarded.
June 5, 2020
...i'm beginning to believe that anything i do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it
i'm pretty sure i can't say anything better to sum up the collection, so for once, i am going to keep it short. very enjoyable short stories - occasionally gratuitous, not as good as , but still tremendous.
some things deserve the short-and-sweet treatment.
i'm pretty sure i can't say anything better to sum up the collection, so for once, i am going to keep it short. very enjoyable short stories - occasionally gratuitous, not as good as , but still tremendous.
some things deserve the short-and-sweet treatment.
March 2, 2012
I don’t know if I should consider this redneck noir or hick lit, but I like it.
Per his bio, Donald Ray Pollock actually grew up in a tiny town called Knockemstiff in southern Ohio, and he spent over thirty years working in a paper mill. It shows in the collection of short stories that are such authentic and gritty portrayals of rural poverty that you’ll feel like you just moved into a double wide with only a garbage bag full of dirty clothes and a case of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Each one of these are stories are about damaged, desperate people stuck so solidly in their small shabby lives that even dreaming about doing better seems beyond them. Centered around the holler of Knockemstiff and ranging from the sixties to the modern day with recurring characters, Pollack develops each tale into it’s own small tragedy. Shifting from moments of stark violence to quiet emotional desolation, this is a powerful depiction of the Americanus Redneckius in one of its natural habitats.
Per his bio, Donald Ray Pollock actually grew up in a tiny town called Knockemstiff in southern Ohio, and he spent over thirty years working in a paper mill. It shows in the collection of short stories that are such authentic and gritty portrayals of rural poverty that you’ll feel like you just moved into a double wide with only a garbage bag full of dirty clothes and a case of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Each one of these are stories are about damaged, desperate people stuck so solidly in their small shabby lives that even dreaming about doing better seems beyond them. Centered around the holler of Knockemstiff and ranging from the sixties to the modern day with recurring characters, Pollack develops each tale into it’s own small tragedy. Shifting from moments of stark violence to quiet emotional desolation, this is a powerful depiction of the Americanus Redneckius in one of its natural habitats.
July 22, 2021
Cuando acabas de leer "Knockemstiff", lo primero que se te ocurre es dar gracias por tener una vida "normal" o, mejor dicho, dar gracias por tener una vida a secas.
Porque este libro es desgarrador, es pura desesperanza. Sólo en el último relato Donald Ray Pollock se permite el lujo de mostrarnos un pequeño rayo de luz al final del túnel. Muy pequeño, pero te da para acabar con cierto buen sabor de boca.
Hasta ese relato, nada, pero nada de nada.
Las historias que se narran son durísimas, sobre todo por el tema de las drogas y el alcohol. Las drogas no son las culpables de todos los males en este libro, pero siempre están por allí, destrozando cualquier tipo de esperanza.
Donald Ray Pollock escribe extraordinariamente bien, extraordinariamente sencillo y extraordinariamente crudo. Combina a la perfección las historias duras con una escritura seca y con un lenguaje acorde a los personajes.
Aviso: No es apto para corazones sensibles a la miseria humana.
When you have just read "Knockemstiff", the first thing that comes to mind is to thank you for having a "normal" life, or rather, to thank you for having a life.
Because this book is heartbreaking, it is pure hopelessness. Only in the last story, Donald Ray Pollock affords himself a small ray of light at the end of the tunnel. Very small, but gives you to finish with some good taste in the mouth.
Until that story, nothing, but nothing.
The stories that are told are hard, especially about drugs and alcohol. Drugs are not to blame for all the evils in this book, but they are always out there, destroying any kind of hope.
Donald Ray Pollock writes extraordinarily well, extraordinarily simple and extraordinarily raw. He perfectly combines hard stories with dry writing and a language that fits with the characters.
Warning: not suitable for hearts sensitive to human misery.
Porque este libro es desgarrador, es pura desesperanza. Sólo en el último relato Donald Ray Pollock se permite el lujo de mostrarnos un pequeño rayo de luz al final del túnel. Muy pequeño, pero te da para acabar con cierto buen sabor de boca.
Hasta ese relato, nada, pero nada de nada.
Las historias que se narran son durísimas, sobre todo por el tema de las drogas y el alcohol. Las drogas no son las culpables de todos los males en este libro, pero siempre están por allí, destrozando cualquier tipo de esperanza.
Donald Ray Pollock escribe extraordinariamente bien, extraordinariamente sencillo y extraordinariamente crudo. Combina a la perfección las historias duras con una escritura seca y con un lenguaje acorde a los personajes.
Aviso: No es apto para corazones sensibles a la miseria humana.
When you have just read "Knockemstiff", the first thing that comes to mind is to thank you for having a "normal" life, or rather, to thank you for having a life.
Because this book is heartbreaking, it is pure hopelessness. Only in the last story, Donald Ray Pollock affords himself a small ray of light at the end of the tunnel. Very small, but gives you to finish with some good taste in the mouth.
Until that story, nothing, but nothing.
The stories that are told are hard, especially about drugs and alcohol. Drugs are not to blame for all the evils in this book, but they are always out there, destroying any kind of hope.
Donald Ray Pollock writes extraordinarily well, extraordinarily simple and extraordinarily raw. He perfectly combines hard stories with dry writing and a language that fits with the characters.
Warning: not suitable for hearts sensitive to human misery.
April 24, 2021
Oh, man. This is harsh stuff. Dark and depraved, full of backward thinking individuals. From blithering idiots to full-fledged immoral jerks to world weary knocked around mamas, you are apt to run into some of each in Knockemstiff, Ohio. An elderly waitress with scrambled eyes, a man who loses his mind when it rains, druggies at every turn, and not a one who believes anything is going to change. They are all stuck, right there "with the devil way down in the hole" (taking this phrase from the theme music for The Wire).
I loved this author's novels The Devil All the Time and The Heavenly Table. The short stories in Knockemstiff have me searching for the brain bleach. My compliments to the author for making it seem all too real.
I loved this author's novels The Devil All the Time and The Heavenly Table. The short stories in Knockemstiff have me searching for the brain bleach. My compliments to the author for making it seem all too real.
October 4, 2023
Dear Mr. Pollock,
I'm writing to you today to express my admiration and general love of your work. As someone who loves to read dark and depressing books, finding your novels has made me very happy. The Heavenly Table and The Devil All The Time are absolutely amazing with the latter being one of my new All time favorites. Your gritty, no-holds-barred emotional writing is something rarely found in today's writers, and I commend you for having the courage and ability to write such unforgiving and unforgettable material.
As I read Knockemstiff I couldn't help but think to myself, what kind of deranged psychopath can come up with this shit. That thought quickly lead to the thought, what kind of person enjoys reading this kind of shit? These stories and your other works are filled with depravity, debauchery, racism, violence, and everything in between. I mean normal people aren't usually drawn to the darkness that you present in your novels. Normal people don't get upset when there is a happy ending. Or finish a book and think it would have been better had the main character died. These aren't normal tendencies. But whatever. Your writing and my reading style fit together like a hand in a glove.
I thank you for your amazing books and hope there is more to come. You have a gift and the world needs more writers like you. Keep up the amazing work.
Sincerely,
Jesse (a happy reader and devout follower)
"I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it."
I'm writing to you today to express my admiration and general love of your work. As someone who loves to read dark and depressing books, finding your novels has made me very happy. The Heavenly Table and The Devil All The Time are absolutely amazing with the latter being one of my new All time favorites. Your gritty, no-holds-barred emotional writing is something rarely found in today's writers, and I commend you for having the courage and ability to write such unforgiving and unforgettable material.
As I read Knockemstiff I couldn't help but think to myself, what kind of deranged psychopath can come up with this shit. That thought quickly lead to the thought, what kind of person enjoys reading this kind of shit? These stories and your other works are filled with depravity, debauchery, racism, violence, and everything in between. I mean normal people aren't usually drawn to the darkness that you present in your novels. Normal people don't get upset when there is a happy ending. Or finish a book and think it would have been better had the main character died. These aren't normal tendencies. But whatever. Your writing and my reading style fit together like a hand in a glove.
I thank you for your amazing books and hope there is more to come. You have a gift and the world needs more writers like you. Keep up the amazing work.
Sincerely,
Jesse (a happy reader and devout follower)
"I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it."
May 24, 2021
پولاک سه تا کتاب داره و هر سه تاش رو هم خانم عسکری ترجمه کرده و توسط نشر نگاه چاپ شده. من تصمیم گرفتم قبل از اینکه سراغ دوتا داستان بلندش برم، برای دستگرم� اول این کتاب رو بخونم که مجموعها� 18 تا داستان کوتاهه
برخلاف استیون کینگ که مکان خیلی از داستانها� تو شهرهای ساختگی ولی توی دنیای واقعیه، داستانها� پولاک توی شهر ناکمستیف رخ مید�. یه شهر کوچیک واقع در جنوب اوهایو که محل تولد نویسنده هم هست و تا حدود 50 سالگی همونج� زندگی کرده و توی کارخونه� کاغذسازی کار میکرد�
این 18 تا داستان کوتاه توی دورهها� زمانی مختلف روایت میش� و بعضی از شخصیتها� توی چندتا داستان حضور پیدا میکن�
چیزی در مورد این داستانه� هست اینه که واقعاً سیاه و تلخن و نویسنده اصلاً مراعات سرش نمیش� و شخصیته� رو توی موقعیتها� خیلی بدی قرار مید� و همهاشو� درگیر فقر، اعتیاد، تجاوز و مسائل جنسی و خشونت خانگی هستن، اسیر شدن و راه فراری ندارن
با همه� اینه� قلم پولاک عالیه. انگار در طول خوندن هر داستان با کلمات و جملهها� آدمو سیاه و کبود میکن� و وقتی داستان تموم شد، ازت میپرس� بازم میخوای� و توام مثل یه خودآزارگرِ خوب کوچولو بهش میگ� یِس دانلد.. گیو می مور
در ضمن این داستانه� خیلی به درد اون دسته مذهبیهای� میخور� که فکر میکن� خداشون اونا رو بیشتر از بقیه دوس داره که در طول زندگیشون مجبور نبودن توی کثافت دست و پا بزنن و این داستانه� رو میخونن و خداشونو شکر میکن� و اگه کسی بیاد پیششون بابت موضوعی شکایت کنه بهش میگ� بیا این داستانه� رو بخون و ناشکری نکن. پس اگه همچین آدمی هستین خوندنش بهتون پیشنهاد میشه ¯\_(�)_/¯
خلاصه به درد همه نمیخور� و اگه قصد خوندن داشتین با احتیاط سراغش برید
ترجمها� خوب و روونه ولی تیغ سانسور بهش خورده و ملایمت� شده
برخلاف استیون کینگ که مکان خیلی از داستانها� تو شهرهای ساختگی ولی توی دنیای واقعیه، داستانها� پولاک توی شهر ناکمستیف رخ مید�. یه شهر کوچیک واقع در جنوب اوهایو که محل تولد نویسنده هم هست و تا حدود 50 سالگی همونج� زندگی کرده و توی کارخونه� کاغذسازی کار میکرد�
این 18 تا داستان کوتاه توی دورهها� زمانی مختلف روایت میش� و بعضی از شخصیتها� توی چندتا داستان حضور پیدا میکن�
چیزی در مورد این داستانه� هست اینه که واقعاً سیاه و تلخن و نویسنده اصلاً مراعات سرش نمیش� و شخصیته� رو توی موقعیتها� خیلی بدی قرار مید� و همهاشو� درگیر فقر، اعتیاد، تجاوز و مسائل جنسی و خشونت خانگی هستن، اسیر شدن و راه فراری ندارن
با همه� اینه� قلم پولاک عالیه. انگار در طول خوندن هر داستان با کلمات و جملهها� آدمو سیاه و کبود میکن� و وقتی داستان تموم شد، ازت میپرس� بازم میخوای� و توام مثل یه خودآزارگرِ خوب کوچولو بهش میگ� یِس دانلد.. گیو می مور
در ضمن این داستانه� خیلی به درد اون دسته مذهبیهای� میخور� که فکر میکن� خداشون اونا رو بیشتر از بقیه دوس داره که در طول زندگیشون مجبور نبودن توی کثافت دست و پا بزنن و این داستانه� رو میخونن و خداشونو شکر میکن� و اگه کسی بیاد پیششون بابت موضوعی شکایت کنه بهش میگ� بیا این داستانه� رو بخون و ناشکری نکن. پس اگه همچین آدمی هستین خوندنش بهتون پیشنهاد میشه ¯\_(�)_/¯
خلاصه به درد همه نمیخور� و اگه قصد خوندن داشتین با احتیاط سراغش برید
ترجمها� خوب و روونه ولی تیغ سانسور بهش خورده و ملایمت� شده
November 13, 2021
The story that made me hurt the most, though it's not the finest structurally or stylistically, was “Knockemstiff.� Two strangers in a Cadillac convertible, husband and wife, pull into Maude's store for gas, and for the wife to take photos of the “Welcome to Knockemstiff� sign. The husband makes small talk with the clerk, commenting that “[i]t's hard to believe there's people that poor living in this country.� Their condescending words and actions are invisible to them. It's simply inconceivable to these privileged people that others are not, well, envious but impressed by them. They're blind to their cruelty.
This rest of this review has been revised and can be found at .
This rest of this review has been revised and can be found at .
May 24, 2019
I grew up in Cincinnati--Norwood, to be precise--and whenever I read Raymond Carver, all the characters seem to speak to me with an Appalachian accent. Wrong of course, but it feels right to me.
Here comes Pollock's "Knockemstiff," set in the hopeless oxycontin hollers of Southern Ohio, and now those Carver-like characters of Appalachia have a fine writer who knows how to give them voice.
Half the stories (the first fourth of the book and the last fourth) are very fine indeed. and the others--although they often seem self-consciously grubby, with every other descriptive phrase carrying one adjective too much---are certainly worth your time.
This guy is better than Harry Crews, and I'm going to read whatever he writes from now on.
September 28, 2021
My second book from Donald Ray Pollock, after reading the sensational "the Devil All the Time." I had immediately fell in love with the authors harsh, brutal but completely authentic style, crazy characters and his ability to describe degradation and depravity in such a matter-of-fact way. The way he puts this across as common, realistic and normal really is second to none. I certainly haven't experienced many authors quite like him.
"A damp, gray sky covered southern Ohio like the skin of a corpse."
In Knockemstiff, which coincidentally is a real place in southern Ohio where Mr Pollock was born and raised, he gives us a collection of short stories. They are all interwoven, being in the same location and with the same set of characters popping up in various entries. Does it reach the lofty heights set in the aforementioned Devil All the Time? Not quite. But it is still very, very good and a reading experience that you certainly need to get on board with. Just be ready to not be the same person when you come out on the other side of all that nastiness and debasement.
The individual stories themselves span about fifty years. That's fifty years of degradation and violence. But Pollock's writing is razor sharp and he injects dark humour throughout. The kind of humour where you shouldn't really find it funny but do. Say ten hail Mary's and give yourself a round of self-flagelation for that. A deranged local who lives in a school bus comes across two siblings committing incest in Dynamite Hole, a boy's father catches him having sex with his sister's doll in Hair's Fate and an ex-bodybuilding champion injects his son with a dangerous combination of steroids in Dedication. As you can tell it's far from pleasant reading but it does make for compulsive reading.
1950s Knockemstiff
Each story is excellent, while being bleak and darkly reflective of life in these impoverished towns. There's no underlying message of hope and Pollock never pretends to be here to make you feel good about humanity. What he does is grab hold of the reader and take you for a ride in his '65 Chevy through the dark side of human existence.
"The Oxy filled holes in me I hadn’t even realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed."
I'll try and make this review short and not drone on for too long. But one thing I'd like to draw attention to is the quality of Pollock's writing. His prose are straight to the point, far from poetic but also raw, sharp and fitting to the narrative. And boy does he have a voice that's original and clear. The dialogue is completely authentic and you can imagine these stories being a part of Pollock's life in the way he tells them. It took him to the age of fifty to become a published author after working in a paper mill and his experience and history shine through in his work.
Final thoughts, this a great collection of work that shows exactly what this author is all about. Despite the dark tone I had an absolute blast with it, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm a huge fan of short stories and this is a very original, different and worthwhile read that you should experience for yourself. Enjoy!
"I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it."
Donald Ray Pollock worked at the paper mill in Knockemstiff
May 31, 2023
"Mi padre me enseñó a hacer daño a la gente una noche de agosto en el autocine Torch cuando yo tenía siete años."
Así empieza el relato que abre esta antología llamado "La vida real", donde conoceremos al pequeño Bobby y al bruto de su padre, Vernon, y como este le "enseña" a enfrentarse a la vida.
Donald Ray Pollock se encabeza dentro del top 5 de mis escritores favoritos. Si ya tenía claro su capacidad narrativa al leer "El diablo a todas horas" (de mis novelas favoritas leídas el año pasado) con esta, su primera novela, me reafirmo en constatar que es un genio mostrando el realismo más duro y sucio de la vida rural decadente de esos pequeños pueblos sureños perdidos de la América profunda, poniendo el foco en la localidad de Knockemstiff, Ohio.
Las más bajas miserias se dan la mano en forma de violaciones, agresiones, asesinatos, perversiones y todo tipo de vejaciones.
Sentirás tu propia cara retorcerse en una mueca de asco en más de una ocasión porque Pollock no escatima en detalles truculentos.
Un extra de mi edición es un mapa de la región que podemos encontrar al inicio, con los lugares más pintorescos y destacables que nombran a lo largo de los diversos relatos.
Muy entretenido ir buscando cada emplazamiento y las casas de cada personaje.
Dieciocho relatos cargados de pesadumbre y dolor. Algo que me ha encantado es que algunos están interconectados, compartiendo localizaciones y dando lugar a que algunos personajes crucen sus vidas con los protagonistas de otras historias.
Aquellos en los que los niños son protagonistas o se ven involucrados de alguna manera son los que más me han llegado, nos hacen conectar con nuestro niño interior, y eso siempre duele.
Otros te dejan con incógnitas y ganas de más como "Domingo de lluvia", te corroe la impotencia y el dolor por esos niños como en "Manteca" o "Gigantomaquia", y te emocionas viendo como Howard ya no reconoce al mundo que le rodea en "Honolulú."
Lo que está claro es que todos tienen algo que te llega, salvo uno o dos, Pollock tiene esa facilidad para transmitir y hacer que te sientas, por un instante, un habitante más.
En esencia, todos son muy destacables, de una calidad notable.
Me ha costado decidirme, pero de todo el conjunto me quedo con estos seis, los cuales describiré brevemente solo para que se hagan una idea de lo que se pueden encontrar en ellos.
🏚 "La vida real."
El pequeño Bobby será testigo de un hecho violento que marcará su vida.
Nada como predicar con el ejemplo de su progenitor al no conocer otro modo de hacer frente a la vida.
🏚 "El destino del pelo."
El padre de Daniel lo pilla "in fraganti" en una situación un tanto comprometida.
No le queda más remedio que huir en busca de un futuro menos incierto.
Pobre de él.
O puede que sea mejor cualquier otra vida que la que tenía.
Nunca se sabe.
🏚 "Gigantomaquia."
La inocencia de unos niños que se ve rota por los delirios y brutalidad de sus progenitores. Buenísimo.
🏚 "Manteca."
"-Tienes que dejar de leer libros - le aconsejó una mañana mientras estaban sentados a la mesa de la cocina. El viejo tenía una pinta espantosa; saltaba a la vista que acababa de tener otra pesadilla chunga -. Empieza a ver más la tele."
Un padre vive aterrorizado porque su hijo aún no se ha "estrenado" con una chica.
Su mayor terror es que sea homosexual.
Terriblemente sigue siendo un tema muy actual.
🏚 "Hondonada."
"Todas las mañanas, antes de que Mary abriera su primera botella de vino, yo iba al cuarto del viejo y lo afeitaba, lo lavaba y le cambiaba el pañal. [...] Aquello implicaba levantarse temprano, pero yo no paraba de pensar que si trataba bien al viejo tal vez algún día alguien me devolvería el favor."
Otra gran historia en la que parece que no hay redención posible.
🏚 "Honolulú."
Un relato con una gran carga emotiva.
De los mejores de la colección sin ninguna duda.
🔝👌 Camioneros sudorosos, pervertidos, tierras yermas, tabaco de mascar, drogas de todo tipo y mucho alcohol.
Pollock es un prodigio relatando las vidas más desgraciadas, así que si quieres comprobarlo de primera mano solo tienes que enfundarte en tu peto con una camisa de franela a cuadros o una simple camisa sin mangas si el sol aprieta, adentrarte en Knockemstiff y recorrer la hondonada, sus calles llenas de polvo, sus caravanas herrumbrosas, ventas y casas destartaladas, conocer a sus habitantes y sus tristes vidas, y dar las gracias por la vida que tienes.
📖 Próxima lectura:
"La maldición gitana" - Harry Crews.
📚
Así empieza el relato que abre esta antología llamado "La vida real", donde conoceremos al pequeño Bobby y al bruto de su padre, Vernon, y como este le "enseña" a enfrentarse a la vida.
Donald Ray Pollock se encabeza dentro del top 5 de mis escritores favoritos. Si ya tenía claro su capacidad narrativa al leer "El diablo a todas horas" (de mis novelas favoritas leídas el año pasado) con esta, su primera novela, me reafirmo en constatar que es un genio mostrando el realismo más duro y sucio de la vida rural decadente de esos pequeños pueblos sureños perdidos de la América profunda, poniendo el foco en la localidad de Knockemstiff, Ohio.
Las más bajas miserias se dan la mano en forma de violaciones, agresiones, asesinatos, perversiones y todo tipo de vejaciones.
Sentirás tu propia cara retorcerse en una mueca de asco en más de una ocasión porque Pollock no escatima en detalles truculentos.
Un extra de mi edición es un mapa de la región que podemos encontrar al inicio, con los lugares más pintorescos y destacables que nombran a lo largo de los diversos relatos.
Muy entretenido ir buscando cada emplazamiento y las casas de cada personaje.
Dieciocho relatos cargados de pesadumbre y dolor. Algo que me ha encantado es que algunos están interconectados, compartiendo localizaciones y dando lugar a que algunos personajes crucen sus vidas con los protagonistas de otras historias.
Aquellos en los que los niños son protagonistas o se ven involucrados de alguna manera son los que más me han llegado, nos hacen conectar con nuestro niño interior, y eso siempre duele.
Otros te dejan con incógnitas y ganas de más como "Domingo de lluvia", te corroe la impotencia y el dolor por esos niños como en "Manteca" o "Gigantomaquia", y te emocionas viendo como Howard ya no reconoce al mundo que le rodea en "Honolulú."
Lo que está claro es que todos tienen algo que te llega, salvo uno o dos, Pollock tiene esa facilidad para transmitir y hacer que te sientas, por un instante, un habitante más.
En esencia, todos son muy destacables, de una calidad notable.
Me ha costado decidirme, pero de todo el conjunto me quedo con estos seis, los cuales describiré brevemente solo para que se hagan una idea de lo que se pueden encontrar en ellos.
🏚 "La vida real."
El pequeño Bobby será testigo de un hecho violento que marcará su vida.
Nada como predicar con el ejemplo de su progenitor al no conocer otro modo de hacer frente a la vida.
🏚 "El destino del pelo."
El padre de Daniel lo pilla "in fraganti" en una situación un tanto comprometida.
No le queda más remedio que huir en busca de un futuro menos incierto.
Pobre de él.
O puede que sea mejor cualquier otra vida que la que tenía.
Nunca se sabe.
🏚 "Gigantomaquia."
La inocencia de unos niños que se ve rota por los delirios y brutalidad de sus progenitores. Buenísimo.
🏚 "Manteca."
"-Tienes que dejar de leer libros - le aconsejó una mañana mientras estaban sentados a la mesa de la cocina. El viejo tenía una pinta espantosa; saltaba a la vista que acababa de tener otra pesadilla chunga -. Empieza a ver más la tele."
Un padre vive aterrorizado porque su hijo aún no se ha "estrenado" con una chica.
Su mayor terror es que sea homosexual.
Terriblemente sigue siendo un tema muy actual.
🏚 "Hondonada."
"Todas las mañanas, antes de que Mary abriera su primera botella de vino, yo iba al cuarto del viejo y lo afeitaba, lo lavaba y le cambiaba el pañal. [...] Aquello implicaba levantarse temprano, pero yo no paraba de pensar que si trataba bien al viejo tal vez algún día alguien me devolvería el favor."
Otra gran historia en la que parece que no hay redención posible.
🏚 "Honolulú."
Un relato con una gran carga emotiva.
De los mejores de la colección sin ninguna duda.
🔝👌 Camioneros sudorosos, pervertidos, tierras yermas, tabaco de mascar, drogas de todo tipo y mucho alcohol.
Pollock es un prodigio relatando las vidas más desgraciadas, así que si quieres comprobarlo de primera mano solo tienes que enfundarte en tu peto con una camisa de franela a cuadros o una simple camisa sin mangas si el sol aprieta, adentrarte en Knockemstiff y recorrer la hondonada, sus calles llenas de polvo, sus caravanas herrumbrosas, ventas y casas destartaladas, conocer a sus habitantes y sus tristes vidas, y dar las gracias por la vida que tienes.
📖 Próxima lectura:
"La maldición gitana" - Harry Crews.
📚
November 14, 2020
Brutal es la mejor palabra que he encontrado para definir Knockemstiff (2008). Brutal en su acepción de propio de los animales. Porque los personajes de los que habla Donald Ray Pollock (1954-) parecen comportarse como tales. Contemplamos a la clase más baja de la sociedad norteamericana, pura basura blanca, balanceándose entre el deseo y la realidad, entre el salvajismo y la disciplina de las religiones radicales en una lucha constante por la supervivencia. Desbocadas locomotoras sin conductor a las que solo se le ofrecen las opciones de atropellar o descarrilar.
Knockemstiff es un pequeño pueblo interior de la América profunda. El ejemplo de una América pobre, analfabeta, sin moral y racista a la vez que olvidada y sin posibilidad de futuro, que solo es capaz de atender a los instintos más primarios: el hambre, indebidamente saciada; la violencia, como principal característica de la hombría; el sexo, en sus vertientes más aberrantes y la evasión de la realidad a través del alcohol, drogas, medicamentos o esteroides. La América del vale de comida y la ayuda por accidente laboral, de las caravanas sin retrete y las bocas desdentadas, de los campos contaminados y los bares siempre abiertos, de la mugre y las armas... Tan alejada de las otras Américas, del glamur de Hollywood o de la opulencia de Wall Street, como puede estar de una aldea en las montañas del Tíbet. Knockemstiff se muestra como una sucia y pegajosa telaraña de la que es imposible escapar, porque la araña de la ausencia total de futuro aparece más pronto que tarde para devorar a todos los desgraciados atrapados en sus hilos.
El estilo de Ray Pollock es suficientemente explícito para conmocionar, pero también suficientemente conciso para no recrearse en la sordidez de lo narrado. Un estilo lejano, aséptico, casi impersonal (hasta cuando se narra en primera persona) que aumenta aun más la sensación de incredulidad y de desasosiego. La aparición de personajes en varias etapas de su vida dentro de diferentes relatos, te permite observar mejor su declive y otorga a la obra una sensación de unidad. Veinticuatro relatos como veinticuatro golpes directos al estómago que cortan la respiración y te dejan al borde del mareo, de la náusea.
Habría mucho más que decir, muchos párrafos para señalar, pero creo que Kiko Amat, en su magnifico prologo, lo expresa mucho mejor que yo. En cualquier caso, lo que sí puedo hacer es ponerme ahora mismo a leer su novela: El diablo a todas horas. Y ya estoy en ello.
Knockemstiff es un pequeño pueblo interior de la América profunda. El ejemplo de una América pobre, analfabeta, sin moral y racista a la vez que olvidada y sin posibilidad de futuro, que solo es capaz de atender a los instintos más primarios: el hambre, indebidamente saciada; la violencia, como principal característica de la hombría; el sexo, en sus vertientes más aberrantes y la evasión de la realidad a través del alcohol, drogas, medicamentos o esteroides. La América del vale de comida y la ayuda por accidente laboral, de las caravanas sin retrete y las bocas desdentadas, de los campos contaminados y los bares siempre abiertos, de la mugre y las armas... Tan alejada de las otras Américas, del glamur de Hollywood o de la opulencia de Wall Street, como puede estar de una aldea en las montañas del Tíbet. Knockemstiff se muestra como una sucia y pegajosa telaraña de la que es imposible escapar, porque la araña de la ausencia total de futuro aparece más pronto que tarde para devorar a todos los desgraciados atrapados en sus hilos.
El estilo de Ray Pollock es suficientemente explícito para conmocionar, pero también suficientemente conciso para no recrearse en la sordidez de lo narrado. Un estilo lejano, aséptico, casi impersonal (hasta cuando se narra en primera persona) que aumenta aun más la sensación de incredulidad y de desasosiego. La aparición de personajes en varias etapas de su vida dentro de diferentes relatos, te permite observar mejor su declive y otorga a la obra una sensación de unidad. Veinticuatro relatos como veinticuatro golpes directos al estómago que cortan la respiración y te dejan al borde del mareo, de la náusea.
Habría mucho más que decir, muchos párrafos para señalar, pero creo que Kiko Amat, en su magnifico prologo, lo expresa mucho mejor que yo. En cualquier caso, lo que sí puedo hacer es ponerme ahora mismo a leer su novela: El diablo a todas horas. Y ya estoy en ello.
January 24, 2023
Ha, I had no idea Knockenstiff, Ohio was not fictional - and I must say I thought it was a ridiculous name for a fictional town - little did I know Donald Ray Pollock wrote about a fictional town with the real name of his home town. This put me on the back foot a little, starting this review.
I would compare this book to RK Narayan's Malgudi Days for format, but not content! By which I mean it is made up of chapters, each containing a single short story, set in the same town, with some common characters and mixing stories. In this case they are almost exclusively grit-lit characters - alcoholics, drug abusers, petty criminals, those with jobs (not too many) are in minimum wage, dead end jobs. The timeframe is hard to pin down, but there are generational stories, which suggest they range from the 1960's to the 1990's. Each story more disturbing than the next, and all told in a detached and matter of fact way, which seemed to give them more power.
There is talk of 'escape' from many of the characters - escape largely from Knockemstiff, but escape from the generational misfortune and bleak lives, and the likelihood of repeating the life of their parents - which doesn't appeal, but escape seldom eventuates, unless you consider hooking up with a trucker and going interstate counts.
As you have probably detected, none of these stories are happy, or have happy endings. Drug and alcohol abuse, crime, violence, sexual abuse and violence - hopeless lives. And yet there is comedy cloaked in this misfortune - there are genuinely funny occurrences and ironies contained, but perhaps only for the reader who can avoid the other triggering aspects of the book. The writing is mean, and it exposes the inner thoughts, even the soul of the characters.
I would struggle to recommend it to those who can't absorb the above features of the narrative, the casual brutality of these lives. Those who have read Pollock's The Devil All the Time will already know what to expect. This was Pollock's first novel, so it doesn't have quite the same polish that Devil has though.
4 stars
I would compare this book to RK Narayan's Malgudi Days for format, but not content! By which I mean it is made up of chapters, each containing a single short story, set in the same town, with some common characters and mixing stories. In this case they are almost exclusively grit-lit characters - alcoholics, drug abusers, petty criminals, those with jobs (not too many) are in minimum wage, dead end jobs. The timeframe is hard to pin down, but there are generational stories, which suggest they range from the 1960's to the 1990's. Each story more disturbing than the next, and all told in a detached and matter of fact way, which seemed to give them more power.
There is talk of 'escape' from many of the characters - escape largely from Knockemstiff, but escape from the generational misfortune and bleak lives, and the likelihood of repeating the life of their parents - which doesn't appeal, but escape seldom eventuates, unless you consider hooking up with a trucker and going interstate counts.
As you have probably detected, none of these stories are happy, or have happy endings. Drug and alcohol abuse, crime, violence, sexual abuse and violence - hopeless lives. And yet there is comedy cloaked in this misfortune - there are genuinely funny occurrences and ironies contained, but perhaps only for the reader who can avoid the other triggering aspects of the book. The writing is mean, and it exposes the inner thoughts, even the soul of the characters.
I would struggle to recommend it to those who can't absorb the above features of the narrative, the casual brutality of these lives. Those who have read Pollock's The Devil All the Time will already know what to expect. This was Pollock's first novel, so it doesn't have quite the same polish that Devil has though.
4 stars
August 25, 2022
شخصیتها� پولاک برایم یادآور مخلوقات پل شریدر در سینما بودند. شخصیتها� تیره و تار، با گذشتها� پر از ترس و هراس و حالی بیح� و بیهد�. شخصیتها� مخوفی که خشونتشا� از کمبودهایشا� سرچشمه میگیر� و برای همین شرشان ملموس و عذابآو� است. شخصیتهای� برگشته از جنگ، مورد تجاوز قرار گرفته، متنفر از مکان زندگی و درک نشده در جامعه و خانواده. پولاک مانند شریدر مخلوقاتا� را در اولین عکسالعملشا� به جهان نابرابر تند و خشن روایت میکن� تا یادآوری کند تجمیع شر{اگر لغت درستی باشد} تبدیل به جنون میشو�. خواندن هر داستان پولاک نگاهی بود به جهان شخصیتها� غیرادبی. شخصیتها� آن خانهها� سیاه تولید کننده� قاتل. یکی از تفاوتها� شریدر و پولاک این است که شریدر در تنگدست� و افسردگی در ماشینا� مخوفتری� شخصیته� را خلق کرد و در جوانی به یکی از مهمتری� نویسندگان سینما بدل شد اما پولاک در دهه� ششم زندگیا� تازه به خیال چاپ اثری افتاد. دهه� ششم زندگی و آغاز نویسندگی حرفها�. این هم خود جنون است
عمیقا دوست داشتم امتیاز بالاتری بدهم اما چند داستان کتاب اصلا راضی کننده نبود. حتما خواندنش را پیشنها� میکن�
عمیقا دوست داشتم امتیاز بالاتری بدهم اما چند داستان کتاب اصلا راضی کننده نبود. حتما خواندنش را پیشنها� میکن�
September 27, 2019
"I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighted by the agony of living it."
- Donald Ray Pollock, "I Start Over" in Knockemstiff
Pollock's freshman effort is a series of short stories surrounding the Southern Ohio town of Knockemstiff (real town). The stories, like planets, orbit the dark sun of this sad, poor and pathetic American town. Each of the stories is like a bite from a rabid dog or a slap with a dirty hand. It is an infection and is hard to escape once read. It clings to the reader like a stink, like a nightmare, like a memory of corruption. Each of the stories seems to bounce between feeling a bit like an incestuous child of Churck Palahniuk and Flannery O'Connor delivered in the unwashed, chipped bathtub of Raymond Carver.
Here are the individual stories:
1. Real Life - ☠☠☠☠�
2. Dynamite Hole - ☠☠�
3. Knockemstiff - ☠☠☠☠
4. Hair's Fate - ☠☠�
5. Pills - ☠☠☠☠�
6. Giganthomachy - ☠☠☠☠�
7. Schott's Bridge - ☠☠☠☠
8. Lard - ☠☠☠☠
9. Fish Sticks - ☠☠☠☠�
10. Bactine - ☠☠☠☠�
11. Discipline - ☠☠☠☠�
12. Assailants - ☠☠�
13. Rainy Sunday - ☠☠☠☠
14. Holler - ☠☠☠☠
15. I start over - ☠☠☠☠�
16. Blessed - ☠☠�
17. Honolulu - ☠☠☠☠
18. Fights - ☠☠☠☠�
- Donald Ray Pollock, "I Start Over" in Knockemstiff
Pollock's freshman effort is a series of short stories surrounding the Southern Ohio town of Knockemstiff (real town). The stories, like planets, orbit the dark sun of this sad, poor and pathetic American town. Each of the stories is like a bite from a rabid dog or a slap with a dirty hand. It is an infection and is hard to escape once read. It clings to the reader like a stink, like a nightmare, like a memory of corruption. Each of the stories seems to bounce between feeling a bit like an incestuous child of Churck Palahniuk and Flannery O'Connor delivered in the unwashed, chipped bathtub of Raymond Carver.
Here are the individual stories:
1. Real Life - ☠☠☠☠�
2. Dynamite Hole - ☠☠�
3. Knockemstiff - ☠☠☠☠
4. Hair's Fate - ☠☠�
5. Pills - ☠☠☠☠�
6. Giganthomachy - ☠☠☠☠�
7. Schott's Bridge - ☠☠☠☠
8. Lard - ☠☠☠☠
9. Fish Sticks - ☠☠☠☠�
10. Bactine - ☠☠☠☠�
11. Discipline - ☠☠☠☠�
12. Assailants - ☠☠�
13. Rainy Sunday - ☠☠☠☠
14. Holler - ☠☠☠☠
15. I start over - ☠☠☠☠�
16. Blessed - ☠☠�
17. Honolulu - ☠☠☠☠
18. Fights - ☠☠☠☠�
April 8, 2012
I'm going to start this review with a humble caveat -- there's no way I can do these stories (or Pollock's writing) any sense of justice. But if I can get you to pause whatever it is you're doing, if I can get you to put down whatever else you happen to be reading, for just a moment to think about this book then I will be a very happy woman indeed.
What can I say? Knockemstiff knocked me flat on my ass. The interconnected stories are an assault on the psyche - a kind of brutalization lined with a deep and abiding sadness ( calls it "emotional desolation") -- a hopelessness that is at times suffocating. These are tales about people trapped in a dead-end place in dead-end lives who don't even have the wherewithal or wisdom to get the hell out of Dodge even if it means chewing their own goddam leg off to do so.
Pollock's characters are not caricatures -- Pollock makes you care, he shows you their humanity in all of its glorious dysfunction, then he makes you root for them and sometimes even pray for them. You know it's futile but you do it anyway -- and then you get your heart broke, and that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. I don't know what that says about me that this sort of visceral reading experience appeals to me, but it does. Perhaps it's the cold comfort that no matter how bad my life seems at any given moment on any given day, it will never be as bad as that.
I also believe it's the cold comfort that's derived from knowing humans are survivors no matter what. No matter what we find a way to endure; no matter how badly we muck things up, we find a way to carry on -- even broken, busted up and beaten down. Despite knowing deep down: "anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it." That's some coldass wisdom right there and it takes an amazing amount of courage and resiliency to face your life armed with that knowledge (but people do it every day).
The writing here is phenomenal -- cutthroat and precise. I'm amazed how quickly Pollock was able to drop me into any story and feel like I'd been reading about the characters for hundreds of pages already. Short stories usually leave me wanting something more and feeling like there is something fundamentally missing. Not so here. I experienced each story as a distinct entity with a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. Each opening sentence made a promise to the reader that Pollock delivers on. Also adding to the overall reading experience here is the fact that many of these stories interconnect so that a character from one will reappear in another, usually older and even more damaged than when we first meet them. This gives the collection a kind of coherency where the sum is far greater than the individual parts.
And of those opening sentences? Here are a few of my favorites. By reading these I think you'll be able to tell whether this collection is for you or not.
Real Life: My father showed me how to hurt a man one August night at the Torch Drive-in when I was seven years old. It was the only thing he was ever any good at.
Knockemstiff: Tina Elliot is leaving tomorrow, heading off with Boo Nesser to shack up in a trailer next to a Texas oil field, and I feel as bad as the time my mother died.
Hair's Fate: When people in town said inbred, what they really meant was lonely. Daniel liked to pretend that anyway. He needed the long hair. Without it, he was nothing but a creepy country stooge from Knockemstiff, Ohio--old people glasses and acne sprouts and a bony chicken chest.
Fish Sticks: It was the day before his cousin's funeral and Del ended up at the Suds washing his black jeans at midnight. They were the only pants he owned that were fit for the occasion.
Bactine: I'd been staying out around Massieville with my crippled uncle because I was broke and unwanted everywhere else, and I spent most of my days changing his slop bucket and sticking fresh cigarettes in his smoke hole.
May 28, 2013
Well, the list of great contemporary American short story writers goes on and here’s another guy to add to it. I’m on a roll � one pitch-black collection about the underclass after another, from Frank Bill to Jordan Harper and now Donald Pollock. I can’t see this happening in the UK so I’m kind of jealous. The only book I’ve got to put up against these guys is The Acid House by Irvine Welsh. I need to do more research � where are the tales of the British underclass? (And while I'm on the subject all this underclass stuff seems to be a male thing - where are the women writing about this?)
(Mind you, we do make seemingly endless movies about the British version of the people in books like Knockemstiff and American Death Songs, off the top of my head, for instance, Dead Man's Shoes, The Debt collector, Ladybird ladybird, Harry Brown, Ae Fond Kiss, The Arbor, Boy A, Career Girls, Cherry Tree Lane, Fish tank, Neds, Tyrannosaur � and on and on. )
Anyhow, it’s hardly worth pointing out, because everybody already has, that Knockemstiff is a great collection of stories about the deadbeats, alkies, dopers, lowlives, racists, no hopers, the abused and the abusers of Southern Ohio. Not so many people die as they do in Frank Bill’s Indiana or Jordan Harper’s Ozarks but you would still rather drive the long way round southern Ohio, I think, the real long way round. And as usual, the unrelieved grimness is suffused with weird poetry, awful you-can’t-say-that humour and horrible but probably true fatalistic speculation on the nature of life without no money at all.
Here’s a quote :
She was packed in a pair of those stretch pants that overweight people should be thrown in prison for wearing. A faded Reds ball cap was cocked on her head at an angle that seemed to foretell, in my gloomy state, an ill-fated ride with a stranger. I could almost see a garden of moss slowly spreading over her secret resting place.
Note : this was another GR recommendation - so thanks again - in the immortal words of the Big Bopper "oh baby, that's-a what I like!"
March 29, 2025
The best American short story collection since Oblivion, a magic that is darker than Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, OH.
The loose connections and recurring characters add depth to the blunt descriptions.
These stories will repulse. They all smell like a "closet full of bad times." But you'll want to read them.
Pollock's prose is lean and mean. There's a holler just like he writes about. There are hundreds of hollers like it all over Ohio and all over this country; and one can bet they are replicated in the nooks and crannies of great cities and foreign provinces as well.
People can seem quite pathetic, and life can seem cruel; yet there is a little hope and beauty to be found. What else can anyone say?
The loose connections and recurring characters add depth to the blunt descriptions.
These stories will repulse. They all smell like a "closet full of bad times." But you'll want to read them.
Pollock's prose is lean and mean. There's a holler just like he writes about. There are hundreds of hollers like it all over Ohio and all over this country; and one can bet they are replicated in the nooks and crannies of great cities and foreign provinces as well.
People can seem quite pathetic, and life can seem cruel; yet there is a little hope and beauty to be found. What else can anyone say?
January 10, 2025
Hostil, asfixiante, brutal, decadente a más no poder, así es la vida en el inexistente Knockemstiff y así se refleja en este puñado de cuentos de Pollock. Tomando saludable distancia de sus personajes, sin juzgarlos en absoluto y con un pérfido humor negro, Pollock retrata las penurias de la white trash americana, esa America sin educación, ni dinero, ni rango social pero, ante todo, sin una mínima y misericordiosa dosis de esperanza.
Es mi primer libro de este autor y debo reconocer que me impactó su estilo directo y desgarrador. Un reflejo del Estados Unidos rural, analfabeto e insignificante, escrito sin sentimentalismos. No, no hay piedad para los nacidos para perder.
Es mi primer libro de este autor y debo reconocer que me impactó su estilo directo y desgarrador. Un reflejo del Estados Unidos rural, analfabeto e insignificante, escrito sin sentimentalismos. No, no hay piedad para los nacidos para perder.
June 10, 2012
If you are feeling kind of crappy, like your life sucks and it couldn't get any worse, pick up a copy of Knockemstiff and give it a read. Soon you will be saying to yourself "Hmmm, well at least I'm not a crackhead, huffer, morbidly obesse whore, alcoholic or steroid user........I just can't stand my boss". (unless you are any of those things......my apologies.)
"I woke up thinking I'd pissed the bed again, but it was just the sticky spot from where Sandy and Me fucked the night before. Those kind of things happen when you drink like I do-you shit your pants in the Wal-mart, you end up living off some crackhead and her poor parents. I raised the blankets up just a tad, traced my finger over the blue KNOCKEMSTIFF, OHIO tattoo Sandy had etched on her skinny ass like a road sign. Why some people need ink to remember where they are from will always be a mystery to me."
Yep. That's how one of the short stories in this book, Holler starts out. All eighteen start out like this, shockingly yet beautifully. Wait until you read the first sentence of Dynamite Hole, I wouldn't dream of spoiling that little gem for you here. I read it while waiting to order at a restaurant, I'm not sure how long the waitress was standing there before I came out of my shock and realized she was standing there waiting for my response. I looked up at her and managed a "huh?"
I am an Ohioan, born and raised in the North/central part of the state. I moved around the state before I moved out of it entirely and around the country. After fourteen years of being a vagabond I ended up back where I started. I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about Ohio, but I had never heard of a town by the name of Knockemstiff, I would have remembered that. It's 167 miles directly to the south, after reading this book I think I'll take care to keep clear of it.
I enjoyed this book completely, I was very impressed. I recommend it anyone who is feeling sorry for themselves.
"I woke up thinking I'd pissed the bed again, but it was just the sticky spot from where Sandy and Me fucked the night before. Those kind of things happen when you drink like I do-you shit your pants in the Wal-mart, you end up living off some crackhead and her poor parents. I raised the blankets up just a tad, traced my finger over the blue KNOCKEMSTIFF, OHIO tattoo Sandy had etched on her skinny ass like a road sign. Why some people need ink to remember where they are from will always be a mystery to me."
Yep. That's how one of the short stories in this book, Holler starts out. All eighteen start out like this, shockingly yet beautifully. Wait until you read the first sentence of Dynamite Hole, I wouldn't dream of spoiling that little gem for you here. I read it while waiting to order at a restaurant, I'm not sure how long the waitress was standing there before I came out of my shock and realized she was standing there waiting for my response. I looked up at her and managed a "huh?"
I am an Ohioan, born and raised in the North/central part of the state. I moved around the state before I moved out of it entirely and around the country. After fourteen years of being a vagabond I ended up back where I started. I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about Ohio, but I had never heard of a town by the name of Knockemstiff, I would have remembered that. It's 167 miles directly to the south, after reading this book I think I'll take care to keep clear of it.
I enjoyed this book completely, I was very impressed. I recommend it anyone who is feeling sorry for themselves.
January 11, 2025
The stories are tragic but some dipped in dark comedy. Pollock crafts characters that feel as real as the rusted trucks and whiskey soaked evening they inhabit. It’s a collection that doesn’t ask for your sympathy, just your witness to its relentless truth. If you’re looking for beauty, you’ll find it in the ugliness Pollock captures so well.
January 16, 2012
"Jill's always on me about my clogged pipes, but I'm a big guy-they don't call me Big Bernie for nothing-and I crave junk food like a baby craves the tit. Besides, I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it."
Welcome to Knockemstiff, Ohio. Hometown of Donald Ray Pollock and literary home of a whole slew of fucked up redneck, hillbilly, poor white trash.
What is it about white trash that makes for such good readin'? I think I wrote about this in a recent review, so I'll just leave the question hanging here.
This is a collection of stories all taking place in Knockemstiff, Ohio. The stories are sometimes interrelated, some characters guest star in multiple stories and the book is bookended and anchored towards the middle with stories about one particular family.
Years ago, well about ten. I had this idea I knocked around in my head for a long time (a couple of years probably), about writing a series of stories that would make up a book all about the trashier side of white Saratoga Springs, my surrogate hometown. I completed two of the stories (shhhh, I like to think I've never completed any), and started or at least jotted down premises for the rest of them. I gave up on the whole idea after awhile and the book is now part of the incredibly amazing library of unwritten books I have conceived of that would have (I'm sure) shaken the ground of American Letters. I was going to maybe share one of those stories, but I think they might actually be lost in some landfill or wherever old hard-drives go to die. Oh well, or maybe they are just somewhere on my computer in a folder I can't remember making.
Anyway, back to the book. These are a series of short stories that all are really fast to read. I think there is something about them that fooled me into reading them faster, and I tried to slow myself down by taking a break after a story or two, but then I'd find myself reading another book and not giving this book the attention I think it deserved. Even with my slipshod style of reading it, I know that there is something good going on here, and one day I should return to it and read them again, slower and without other books getting in the middle of them (I'm currently having a problem with starting books, I have about five books going on right now, I need to just start finishing some and not starting anymore until I do, but so many different titles keep calling out to me and I'm impatient).
While I'm not personally white trash (I don't think), I have spent quite a bit of time in my past watching them, frequenting the same places that they go to, getting called a faggot by them, going to their homes to deliver food and furniture, taking away furniture from them, working with them and still to this day being more afraid of them in a Wal-Mart when I'm home visiting my parents than I ever feel in New York City. This past Christmas I was home and visiting Wal-Mart to try to find a cable of some sort for my Dad and I got to overhear so many delightfully ignorant conversations about a whole host of topics. The kinds of things that if you read you might think were total fabrications, people really believe some of this shit? (I'm feeling too lazy to share them here, some of the topics included 'how calenders lie', 'why I don't trust the post-office', and 'how even going on the internet at all causes identity theft' (followed up by, 'how I'm smarter than all those other motherfuckers', this particular man was pontificating right in front of where the cable was that I needed to get, so I spent longer than I should have listening to him)) The point of that blabbing is that after my years of careful study of them I feel like Pollock nailed them so well. I felt like I was back nursing weak coffee at the Spa City Diner or standing on a rickety set of stairs leading up to a double wide at the Pyramid Pines trailer park (you know, the one out behind Wal-Mart with over three hundred units).
I'm not up to going to into very many particulars about the stories themselves. They are good even if it's doubtful very many of the characters can be called good. They are fucked up people, making bad decisions and trapped in bad lives with no hope of redemption. I (and maybe you) just get to get some enjoyment out of taking a glimpse into these lives and slum it for a couple of hundred pages.
Oh, and before I leave this review, I just wanted to share this other passage from the book. How depressing is this? This is like Raymond Carver level tightly packed depressing in the details. Or maybe it's just me.
"Sharon was heavy, too, but over the years she learned the secrets of makeup application and how to camouflage her thick body with brightly colored sweats."
Welcome to Knockemstiff, Ohio. Hometown of Donald Ray Pollock and literary home of a whole slew of fucked up redneck, hillbilly, poor white trash.
What is it about white trash that makes for such good readin'? I think I wrote about this in a recent review, so I'll just leave the question hanging here.
This is a collection of stories all taking place in Knockemstiff, Ohio. The stories are sometimes interrelated, some characters guest star in multiple stories and the book is bookended and anchored towards the middle with stories about one particular family.
Years ago, well about ten. I had this idea I knocked around in my head for a long time (a couple of years probably), about writing a series of stories that would make up a book all about the trashier side of white Saratoga Springs, my surrogate hometown. I completed two of the stories (shhhh, I like to think I've never completed any), and started or at least jotted down premises for the rest of them. I gave up on the whole idea after awhile and the book is now part of the incredibly amazing library of unwritten books I have conceived of that would have (I'm sure) shaken the ground of American Letters. I was going to maybe share one of those stories, but I think they might actually be lost in some landfill or wherever old hard-drives go to die. Oh well, or maybe they are just somewhere on my computer in a folder I can't remember making.
Anyway, back to the book. These are a series of short stories that all are really fast to read. I think there is something about them that fooled me into reading them faster, and I tried to slow myself down by taking a break after a story or two, but then I'd find myself reading another book and not giving this book the attention I think it deserved. Even with my slipshod style of reading it, I know that there is something good going on here, and one day I should return to it and read them again, slower and without other books getting in the middle of them (I'm currently having a problem with starting books, I have about five books going on right now, I need to just start finishing some and not starting anymore until I do, but so many different titles keep calling out to me and I'm impatient).
While I'm not personally white trash (I don't think), I have spent quite a bit of time in my past watching them, frequenting the same places that they go to, getting called a faggot by them, going to their homes to deliver food and furniture, taking away furniture from them, working with them and still to this day being more afraid of them in a Wal-Mart when I'm home visiting my parents than I ever feel in New York City. This past Christmas I was home and visiting Wal-Mart to try to find a cable of some sort for my Dad and I got to overhear so many delightfully ignorant conversations about a whole host of topics. The kinds of things that if you read you might think were total fabrications, people really believe some of this shit? (I'm feeling too lazy to share them here, some of the topics included 'how calenders lie', 'why I don't trust the post-office', and 'how even going on the internet at all causes identity theft' (followed up by, 'how I'm smarter than all those other motherfuckers', this particular man was pontificating right in front of where the cable was that I needed to get, so I spent longer than I should have listening to him)) The point of that blabbing is that after my years of careful study of them I feel like Pollock nailed them so well. I felt like I was back nursing weak coffee at the Spa City Diner or standing on a rickety set of stairs leading up to a double wide at the Pyramid Pines trailer park (you know, the one out behind Wal-Mart with over three hundred units).
I'm not up to going to into very many particulars about the stories themselves. They are good even if it's doubtful very many of the characters can be called good. They are fucked up people, making bad decisions and trapped in bad lives with no hope of redemption. I (and maybe you) just get to get some enjoyment out of taking a glimpse into these lives and slum it for a couple of hundred pages.
Oh, and before I leave this review, I just wanted to share this other passage from the book. How depressing is this? This is like Raymond Carver level tightly packed depressing in the details. Or maybe it's just me.
"Sharon was heavy, too, but over the years she learned the secrets of makeup application and how to camouflage her thick body with brightly colored sweats."
August 13, 2023
Considering this was my first book from Donald Ray Pollock, I didn’t read what the book was about. It wasn’t until I got halfway through, after thinking “what the heck am I reading�, did I realise that this was a collection of fictitious stories about the people living in a town called Knockemstiff. Once I realised what a dumbass I was, I really got into it.
The Midwestern town of Knockemstiff, Ohio is home to a bunch of characters who are on the bottom rung of a long list of socioeconomic issues... Poverty, uneducated, unemployed, drugs, and crime, but each character is a tour de force, and is unquestionably real.
This collection of 18 stories, spans over 30 years, from the 1960’s to 1990’s. They include suicide, incest, drug and alcohol addiction, murder, and a life full of depravity. I can’t really pick a favourite story, as each is epic in its own right, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to read this, as part of a buddy read, with my beautiful soul sisters MadameD and Debbie Y.
I believe this is Pollocks debut book, but after reading this, I’m definitely looking forward to reading his others.
4.5 ⭐️
The Midwestern town of Knockemstiff, Ohio is home to a bunch of characters who are on the bottom rung of a long list of socioeconomic issues... Poverty, uneducated, unemployed, drugs, and crime, but each character is a tour de force, and is unquestionably real.
This collection of 18 stories, spans over 30 years, from the 1960’s to 1990’s. They include suicide, incest, drug and alcohol addiction, murder, and a life full of depravity. I can’t really pick a favourite story, as each is epic in its own right, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to read this, as part of a buddy read, with my beautiful soul sisters MadameD and Debbie Y.
I believe this is Pollocks debut book, but after reading this, I’m definitely looking forward to reading his others.
4.5 ⭐️
October 9, 2022
Yikes 😅 I knew from the get-go that this was gonna be a messed up collection, and it was, but I wasn’t expecting just how horrible it made me feel. It’s not so much the casual depravity and violence (although that definitely didn’t make me feel great), but more than anything I thought it was just so hopelessly depressing.
Also, it was very strange to read these stories when I live not too far away from where they’re based. The fact that I knew most of the locations he was referencing just added another layer to the story, making it that much more real and upsetting. Which was exactly how I felt about The Devil All The Time, so I’m not sure what I was expecting, but yeah, this very much got to me, and I highly recommend it!!
Also, it was very strange to read these stories when I live not too far away from where they’re based. The fact that I knew most of the locations he was referencing just added another layer to the story, making it that much more real and upsetting. Which was exactly how I felt about The Devil All The Time, so I’m not sure what I was expecting, but yeah, this very much got to me, and I highly recommend it!!
March 23, 2016
This debut short story collection by Donald Ray Pollock is comprised of hard little nuggets of country grit that follow a variety of individuals living in and around the small Ohio holler of Knockemstiff, a place based on Pollock's own hometown. It's hard to look back on the book and single out stories for review because each story truly does feel like part of a whole, making the book feel more cohesive than most story collections. Many of the characters are referenced in more than story, and some even reappear in multiple stories. But, at the risk of sounding like a cliche, the main character in all the stories is the town itself, acting as the stories' sort-of-antagonist, placing an almost mystical hold on its inhabitants. Some dream of leaving but are either held back by circumstances or terrified of the world outside. Some even actually leave but are ultimately brought down by the past or are pulled back. And here, Pollock's blunt and doom-filled language gives the reader a hint of what's to come in his great follow-up novel,
.
I'm beginning to believe that anything that I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.
February 11, 2015
I loved The Devil All the Time, Pollock's follow up novel so I thought I'd go back to his first book, Knockemstiff (hereafter referred to as K). K begat TDATT in that it is a series of short stories or vignettes set in Pollock's actual home town called (yeah) K. TDATT is a novel featuring one of the characters introduced in K.
The stories or scenes in K are all impactful if desperately sad and grim. All of the participants are what would commonly be described (where I live) as drug-ridden, low-life losers. There did come a point I though I could take no more but after a break I went back to it and I'm glad I did as the writing is of a very high quality indeed. Yes, some bits are better than others and, look as you may, you won't find any happy endings here. But as a whole it has power and craft and leaves an impression that's difficult to shake off.
I'd read more by this writer but my advice is stay away from K if you've had a bad day... and even if you haven't, approach with caution.
The stories or scenes in K are all impactful if desperately sad and grim. All of the participants are what would commonly be described (where I live) as drug-ridden, low-life losers. There did come a point I though I could take no more but after a break I went back to it and I'm glad I did as the writing is of a very high quality indeed. Yes, some bits are better than others and, look as you may, you won't find any happy endings here. But as a whole it has power and craft and leaves an impression that's difficult to shake off.
I'd read more by this writer but my advice is stay away from K if you've had a bad day... and even if you haven't, approach with caution.
January 21, 2025
"Knockemstiff" is a captivating collection of short stories set in the eponymous town. As I delved into these tales of debauchery, violence, and overall degradation, I couldn't help but notice the strong echoes of Joe Lansdale's work, particularly in the writing style that closely resembles the Texan author's. My only minor issue with the book is that the majority of the stories don't follow a traditional narrative structure with a clear beginning, middle, and end, nor do they have distinct plots. Instead, they primarily focus on "situations" that paint a vivid picture of the town and its inhabitants. Despite this, the author's unique style kept me engrossed in the pages from start to finish.
Four stars.
Four stars.
February 2, 2020
Review to come
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