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punkyjewster's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
alexandragporter's review against another edition
I’m not someone who can easily connect with stories quickly; short form is not for me i fear
maa_pix's review against another edition
5.0
Goodreads has many excellent reviews of this book already, so I won't go into detail. I'll only say this: Reading these stories is like standing on the edge of a cesspool of humanity. The world that Pollock writes about is dark, dark, dark. But he writes so damn well it's worth it to linger there for a while. At least for 200 pages or so.
Knockemstiff has put Pollock on my "must read" list.
Knockemstiff has put Pollock on my "must read" list.
murphyslaw09's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
pogseu's review against another edition
5.0
A brilliant collection of interconnected stories, beautifully written, spanning several decades in and around the town of Knockemstiff, Ohio. As the author, Donald Ray Pollock, points out in his Acknowledgments, Knockemstiff is a real place, where he grew up, but all characters are fictional.
I loved the name of the place. In the third story, with the eponymous title of Knockemstiff, the narrator works in the only shop / petrol station in Knockemstiff. He meets a Californian couple who are travelling all over the US, so that the woman, who is a photographer, can take photos of signs and people in the poor parts of the country. The man says, “ it’s hard to believe there’s people that poor in this country. Living in the richest nation in the world.”
The couple asks our narrator why the town is called Knockemstiff, and I loved this bit:
“Why the hell do they call it Knockemstiff?“ He asks. “Seems like a pretty rough name for a place this quiet.“
I sigh and reach in my pocket for a cigarette, but I’ve left my pack inside. I’ve probably been asked that question 30 or 40 times since I started working for Maude but I’m no storyteller. And the take of how Knockemstiff got its name sounds stupid, even when the old-timers get loaded and tell it. But these people have come clear from California, and the man is expecting some kind of answer. “Not much of a story,“ I say. “Supposedly these two women got in a fight over a man up there in front of the church. One was the wife and the other was the girlfriend. The preacher heard one of them swear she was going to knock the other one stiff.” I shrug and look at the man. “I guess the place hadn’t been named yet. That all happened before I was born.“
The stories focus on ‘hillbillies’, poor people, white trash. The author tackles a wide range of issues through his stories, from addiction to domestic violence, via incest and steroid abuse.
We see characters with pretty warped morals throughout, and how they deal with hardships.
I was impressed by how well the author managed to build the atmosphere of place in each new story and transport me each time in a new environment, with a strong sense of how it would look, how it would smell. I found his descriptions really spot on when it came to capturing grime and smells (of rotten breath or feet, for instance)
There’s sadly little hope, but there is still some hope for some of the characters. And I loved how kind the author was towards his character, if that makes sense. I felt he could empathise with them, without condemning them for being dirt-poor, or for making poor life choices.
There’s a very handy map of Knockemstiff at the start of the book. I spent a lot of time with it, and really loved how, despite the fact that the book spans generations of Knockemstiff inhabitants, most if not all of the characters in the book were connected in one way or another. Not everyone was connected to everyone else, but obviously everyone knows, or knows of everyone else. And I liked getting the different points of view and reading about what happened to such and such who was perceived in a completely different way by a character whose story I had read earlier on. This collection of stories would really benefit from a second read.
All in all, I thought this was a brilliant collection of stories. A true gem. I will keep this book close, and recommend it to everyone I know, because I believe this book should be read by everyone, whatever their tastes in books.
And I will definitely come back to it for—multiple—rereads.
I loved the name of the place. In the third story, with the eponymous title of Knockemstiff, the narrator works in the only shop / petrol station in Knockemstiff. He meets a Californian couple who are travelling all over the US, so that the woman, who is a photographer, can take photos of signs and people in the poor parts of the country. The man says, “ it’s hard to believe there’s people that poor in this country. Living in the richest nation in the world.”
The couple asks our narrator why the town is called Knockemstiff, and I loved this bit:
“Why the hell do they call it Knockemstiff?“ He asks. “Seems like a pretty rough name for a place this quiet.“
I sigh and reach in my pocket for a cigarette, but I’ve left my pack inside. I’ve probably been asked that question 30 or 40 times since I started working for Maude but I’m no storyteller. And the take of how Knockemstiff got its name sounds stupid, even when the old-timers get loaded and tell it. But these people have come clear from California, and the man is expecting some kind of answer. “Not much of a story,“ I say. “Supposedly these two women got in a fight over a man up there in front of the church. One was the wife and the other was the girlfriend. The preacher heard one of them swear she was going to knock the other one stiff.” I shrug and look at the man. “I guess the place hadn’t been named yet. That all happened before I was born.“
The stories focus on ‘hillbillies’, poor people, white trash. The author tackles a wide range of issues through his stories, from addiction to domestic violence, via incest and steroid abuse.
We see characters with pretty warped morals throughout, and how they deal with hardships.
I was impressed by how well the author managed to build the atmosphere of place in each new story and transport me each time in a new environment, with a strong sense of how it would look, how it would smell. I found his descriptions really spot on when it came to capturing grime and smells (of rotten breath or feet, for instance)
There’s sadly little hope, but there is still some hope for some of the characters. And I loved how kind the author was towards his character, if that makes sense. I felt he could empathise with them, without condemning them for being dirt-poor, or for making poor life choices.
There’s a very handy map of Knockemstiff at the start of the book. I spent a lot of time with it, and really loved how, despite the fact that the book spans generations of Knockemstiff inhabitants, most if not all of the characters in the book were connected in one way or another. Not everyone was connected to everyone else, but obviously everyone knows, or knows of everyone else. And I liked getting the different points of view and reading about what happened to such and such who was perceived in a completely different way by a character whose story I had read earlier on. This collection of stories would really benefit from a second read.
All in all, I thought this was a brilliant collection of stories. A true gem. I will keep this book close, and recommend it to everyone I know, because I believe this book should be read by everyone, whatever their tastes in books.
And I will definitely come back to it for—multiple—rereads.
foofers1622's review against another edition
4.0
Who knew we needed a genre of Appalachian Gothic? I did read [b:The Devil All the Time|10108463|The Devil All the Time|Donald Ray Pollock|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320561517l/10108463._SY75_.jpg|15005760] before this and I wish I had done it the other way around. Some of the minor characters in Knockemstiff pop back up in Devil All the Time.
lisawhelpley's review against another edition
5.0
A very interesting read. These characters tie together at times. Stories are so original. Read it!
chillcox15's review against another edition
4.0
I read this and Crimes in Southern Indiana, by Frank Bill, in very close vicinity, and they cover much of the same ground -- the dirty, depressing, and devious lives of people who situate themselves in a particular geographic area, an area that the author himself grew up in. In as much, I cannot help but compare the two. I found myself liking this book a little more than Bill's, if for the fact that I felt some of these stories were a little more varied than those in Crimes in Southern Indiana, which I sometimes found to be repetitive. This book got repetitive at points, too (Its most major weakness), where some of the protagonists (drug-addled toothless 20-something hicks) and situations (a high occurrence of hidden or devious homosexuality) appeared a little too often, making some of the stories blend together indistinguishably. That said, I think the area where Donald Ray Pollock really shines is in knowing how absurd to make his stories. They are bleakly realist, after all, but he goes a little bit farther in the predicaments of the characters than Frank Bill does (who often relies on balls-to-the-wall blood-soaked violence to jar his readers into fiction); I particularly enjoyed the body-building story Discipline, which didn't really use the same archetypes the other stories did, as an example of the essential weirdness of the goings-ons in Knockemstiff. Other than that, I found a lot of Pollack's characters to be placed well in the spectrum of sympathetic protagonists to not-so-very-sympathetic; their actions were at times despicable, but he knew where to put enough inner monologues to get his readers to at least understand what might be going on with them. Overall, I would recommend this to the dirty-slice-of-Americana crowd.
nal1031's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0