| In Association With... |  |
|
|
|
Knockemstiff | 
 enlarge | Author: Donald Ray Pollock
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $12.61
You Save: $10.34 (45%)
New (37) from $12.61
Avg. Customer Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 14323
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385523823
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780385523820
ASIN: 0385523823
Publication Date: March 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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
Product Description
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.
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 woebegone, baffled and depraved—but irresistibly, undeniably real. Rendered in the American vernacular with vivid imagery and a wry, dark sense of humor, these thwarted and sometimes violent lives jump off the page at the reader with inexorable force. 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.
With an artistic instinct honed on the works of Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews, Pollock offers a powerful work of fiction in the classic American vein. Knockemstiff is a genuine entry into the literature of place.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 Nice collection of....... July 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Knockemstiff" is depressing as hell! But not in the sense that the book isn't any good, it is. The book is about the town of Knockemstiff, Ohio and there just isn't anything happy about the place.
This book has a little bit of everything: drugs, rape, murder, incest, sex, corruption, addiction, love, racism, steroids, domestic abuse, theft, fishsticks and a whole lot of other things I would rather not mention in my review!
It's a very gritty but quick read, only 203 pages. Their are 18 individual stories with some reaccuring characters throughout it. The stories, if not true, could easily be true and most likely have happened sometime / somewhere out there!
Many of the things these unruly characters in the book do, would make most of us cringe (or gag, faint or run away), but hey, this is Knockemstiff, you gotta do, what you gotta do to get by and it "ain't" pretty!
You've been warned.....
The 18 stories in the book are:
Real Life (5/5 stars)
Dynamite Hole (5/5 stars)
Knockemstiff (3/5 stars)
Hair's Fate (5/5 stars)
Pills (4/5 stars)
Giganthomacy (3/5 stars)
Schott's Bridge (4/5 stars)
Lard (3/5 stars)
Fish Sticks (4/5 stars)
Bactine (5/5 stars)
Discipline (5/5 stars)
Assailants (5/5 stars)
Rainy Sunday (3/5 stars)
Holler (3/5 stars)
I Start Over (4/5 stars)
Blessed (5/5 stars)
Honolulu (4/5 stars)
The Fights (4/5 stars)
Good luck and enjoy.......
So gritty there was sand in my eyes July 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you like it real, then you'll like this book. Pollock plunges his knife in deep and comes up with a slice from the other side in this collection of entertaining short stories. Sad, funny or disgusting, these stories are always honest. They are a testament to what people will do when they have nothing else to rely on but themselves.
So Good, It' s a Bit Hard to Take July 13, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Having spent a lot of my youth in an area not unlike Knockemstiff, albeit next door in Indiana, I can definitely say that Pollock captures a people, a mindset, and a time very accurately in most every story in the book. It's so painfully accurate, in fact, that it makes the book hard to read at times.
Like Raymond Carver before him, Pollock gets inside the minds and lives of all too ordinary people who are down on their luck and have been on a generational level for decades. And like Carver, no depression is too deep, no bitterness is too acidic, and no depravity is too disgusting to re-create for the reader here.
Don't get me wrong - Donald Ray Pollock is an exceptional writer, and proves it in every line and paragraph of the book. It's simply that after the first five or six stories, I found that I had to set it aside for a while out of pure self-preservation and read something more positive before picking it back up again. It's not that the book is filled with anger and violence -- it has elements of both -- but more that most of the characters are NOT angry when they commit their violence. They are almost apathetic about rape, killing, and general inhumanity toward others, primarily because they see themselves as victims who are just trying to get by...and see their victims as being in their way.
So is it worth buying? Absolutely. It's a very well written, well thought-out collection of stories. Just do yourself a favor and also pick up something humorous that you can turn to as a mental break at various times as you read it.
NASTY, SHOCKING, WONDERFUL!!! July 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
KNOCKEMSTIFF
Not being a fan of short stories, I was hesitant to pick this one up; however, am I glad that I did! There are 18 short stories, most of them involving characters from previous stories, all of them rather inter-weaving. All of them take place in Knockemstiff, Ohio.
You can live anywhere in the world and there are people like these characters. Sad, white-trash, losers, hooked on dope and booze, dirty, sleazy, lazy, nasty people that you pray never would live next door to you or for that matter on the same block! These characters were so believeable and yes, scary, they seemed so hopeless and pathetic. Yet, these people do care about others and there is always the essense of the human touch. Some of them hate who they are and how they live and try and try to better themselves. Wow, these characters never ceased to amaze me! This is a quick read, very fast-paced and I was constantly surprised and shocked!
The writing is wonderful, the stories are wonderful. The book is different and not for people who shock easily or who take offense. If nasty sex and drugs and booze and dirty living conditions and grossness would upset you, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.
However, you should just go for it and read this great book; otherwise, you are certainly cheating yourself out of a terrific piece of writing.
This is a graphic book; I loved it. I will certainly recommed it to all of my friends!
Thank you!
Pam
"Tight as bark on a tree..." July 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
... read this book start to stop nearly without putting it down. The stories are not thick and plodding - they are exact and solid: "...and stuck in southern Ohio like the smile on a dead clown's *ss." I was traveling home to Ohio at the same time; it feels like another world whenever I am there.
I think everywhere has places like Knockemstiff - where everyone starts with a clean slate - but it's almost written in the stars that they will be as bad or worse as the people around them just by staying and not being able to escape mentally or physically the pull of a dying town.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
