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Knockemstiff [Paperback]

Donald Ray Pollock (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 2 July 2009

Blunt, brutal, but infused with a deep sympathy, Knockemstiff is a pitch-dark and hilarious collection of stories set in a tiny town in Southern Ohio.

The youth of Knockemstiff grow up in the malignant shadow of their parents; raised on abuse, alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, they are stunted in every possible way: emotionally, mentally, sometimes physically. They talk a lot about escape but they never so much as cross the county line.

Frequently Bought Together

Knockemstiff + The Devil All the Time + Ablutions
Price For All Three: £18.00

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  • The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock Paperback £5.99
  • Ablutions by Patrick deWitt Paperback £5.27

Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (2 July 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099520974
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099520979
  • Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.4 x 20.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 48,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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› Visit Amazon's Donald Ray Pollock Page
Donald Ray Pollock
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Review

"To get an idea of Donald Ray Pollock's astonishing new book, one could try to imagine a drunken punch-up between a redneck Hemingway and an amphetamine-fuelled Raymond Carver... A fiendishly enjoyable collection" (Daily Telegraph )

"Pollock's writing is lean and unflinching. His economical prose excels in its lurid (and often scatological) detail, and his physical descriptions are superb. The book is laced with dry, black humour" (New Statesman )

"Like Denis Johnson, Andre Dubus and Raymond Carver before him, Pollock populates his stories with low-lives and junkies, dreamers and drunks...He is a master of voice and phrasing, and there are some knockout, pitch-perfect sentences.... Pollock treats readers to inventive, melodic and captivating storytelling. It may be as ragged as junkies' jeans, but this has the potential to be a whiskey-stained classic" (Time Out )

"The majority of the inhabitants of Knockemstiff, Ohio ... seem straight out of John Boorman's film Deliverance ... Life experience shows in this exceptional collection" (Guardian )

"What makes this an enjoyable read is Pollock's aptitude for a funny gag in the guise of amazingly inventive language" (Dazed and Confused )

Book Description

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.
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Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
15 reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wino'sburg, Ohio 28 Jun 2011
By Ryan Williams VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the best collection of short fiction I've read in 2011 so far. The book's spell is hard to account for. The terrain is Knockemstiff, Ohio, and a million miles away from anything Sherwood Anderson ever imagined. The characters are largely druggies and losers. Haven't we read this before, in Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski, Denis Johnson?

But here's the thing. Like all the above, Donald Ray Pollock can write. Some of his sentences are so sharp they could almost leave you with shallow cuts. (See the story 'Bactine', which rapidly became my favourite in the collection.) The dialogue is crisp, to the point, authentic; no story idles, and the characters compel further reading. The guy knows his terrain, has seen it, lived with it, and compressed it artfully.

You just can't fake this kind of thing. It's surprising Pollock hasn't been writing longer. In fact, he's a former paper mill worker in his fifties: this is his first book. You'd better believe I'll be checking out his first novel The Devil All the Time without delay.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars visit Knockemstiff 29 July 2008
By Paul Luikart
Format:Hardcover
When people talk about Knockemstiff, they often use the word, "gritty." The word kind of starts to lose its meaning. The stories in Knockemstiff are intense, that's for sure. There were a couple of spots in some of the stories where I had to put the book down for a minute and look away from the page. Rough things happen to the characters and the characters sometimes do horrible things. But, here's what's best about the collection: The compassion for these characters with which Pollock writes. He's able to take the "gritty" things that happen, the abandonments, the empty highs, the violence, etc. and use them to leave the reader with a sense of heartbreak and a sense of connection. That might sound funny. "Why would I want to feel connected to violence?" That's the risk of this read. To pick it up means you have to be willing to acknowledge that a couple of Bactine addicts, for example, might trigger your sense of empathy. Pollock writes in a stark, unapologetic, conversational style, which helps pique that sense of compassion and bring about the sense of connection in the reader. He's not looking down on Knockemstiff from a helicopter. Instead, he's looking at it from the seat of a beat up Chevy parked at the drive-in. I'd call it "immersion fiction," if I can make up a term.

Anyway, Knockemstiff is profound collection that is definitely worth picking up and reading. That's another thing, by the way. You won't have to pick it up too many times. The stories are quite gripping. You'll be through with it pretty quick.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, poetic and emotional debut from a master of the written word 29 Aug 2008
By R. Layfield
Format:Hardcover
Think of that moment at the end of Kes when Billy realises that all his dreams have been crushed and he's doomed to work in the pit like his brother and father before him. That's the overarching feeling you get from this book - hopelessness, dreams unfulfilled, the cruelty of being doomed to be always "where you're from."

The stories are powerful, beautiful, visceral and tragic. It's some of the best short fiction I've ever read and it paints a portrait of backwater america that's so tangible it almost makes me nostalgic for it. From the father proud of his son's first fight, to the kid trying to dodge the draft by luring his pursuers into a snake pit, to the tale of love lost at the petrol pumps as yet another local leaves for the big city, the stories are by turns frightening, disturbing, tragic, hopeless and poignant.

Donald Ray Pollock claims to be a former resident of the real town of Knockemstiff and whilst none of the stories are actually based in fact, he's used his experience well to cast them in a believable reality of their own.

This is a very very well-written book and it will reward you.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read
A clever compilation of short stories that reads as a novel. It is a hard hitting insight into low life USA. Different from any thriller writer I have read before.
Published 3 months ago by astrid haynes
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent Prose
Donald Ray Pollock worked for thirty years in a paper mill, which just goes to show that good things come to those that wait - in this case, good things for us as readers in being... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jimmi C
4.0 out of 5 stars A powerful voice
Donald Ray Pollock's voice is refreshing, powerful and more than a little dark. I'm looking forward to reading what comes next as he is a powerhouse of writing potential.
Published 5 months ago by Dave
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary
This is an extraordinary book. Pollock describes appalling and damaged people in ghastly situations, behaving badly, and somehow elicits for them something which is close to... Read more
Published 9 months ago by MallingFox
4.0 out of 5 stars Knockemdead!
Pollack's debut is a fantastic collection of short stories about his alleged hometown, where he supposedly worked in a slaughterhouse for thirty years! Read more
Published 9 months ago by The Outsider
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but didn't quite knock me stiff.
This was surprisingly and refreshingly good fun. The American Dream isn't often represented like this; sought after but not grasped (not in a million years), and the results -... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Sceptic
5.0 out of 5 stars effecting and wonderful
This was my first taste of Pollock.It wont be my last. A collection of short stories that are in turns bitter and bleak, never flinching away from the nasty underbelly of this... Read more
Published 19 months ago by vi
5.0 out of 5 stars another great book by Donald Pollock
This was a great read, I have only recently stumbled upon Donald Ray pollock when in America I was looking for a book to read on the plane home and bought his other book The Devil... Read more
Published 20 months ago by bexley
4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome collection - not for the faint hearted
Well, this one can really knock the wind out of you. Heartbreaking short stories spanning decades with some recurring characters. Read more
Published on 22 May 2011 by Mr. Gareth Price
5.0 out of 5 stars America's Lumpenproletariat ...
Donald Ray Pollock has written a truly remarkable collection of stories. They are an unflinching look at the American underclass. Read more
Published on 1 Jan 2011 by John P. Jones III
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