The Devil All the Time [Paperback]

Expectations are always high when a great (and Donald Ray Pollocks short stories are exceptional) short story writer releases a novel. No need to worry here then as The Devil all The Time is an exceptionally good first novel. Brilliant, even.

Quite a hard book to summarize easily as it has multiple threads and characters that weave in and out of each other that then finally collide in blood and guts at the end. Literally the equivalent of a murder spree in prose it has little mercy for the squemish or faint of heart.

If you've read Knockemstiff then you will know the types of characters Mr Pollock writes about - outsiders, losers and the downright murderous. It's the quality of the writing that gets to you - hard edged and honest, tragedy shot through with humour, great dialogue. Writing in a voice that reminded me of some of my all-time favourite writers (Tim Gautreaux, Ron Rash, Larry Brown through Harry Crews and back to Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner although Mr Pollock has his own distinct style ) I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

The Devil All The Time is among the most profound books I've ever read.
It has a place among the American classics in terms of the scope of the book and the quality of the voice. There are echoes of great writers of the past, something that is magnified to some extent by setting the story in the decades following the Second World War.
Having read and admired his short story collection `Knockemstiff', I'd been itching to see this on the UK shelves.
It's been a long time coming; the reasons for that are clear to see. The prose is lean and crafted so well that I imagine every single sentence has been given attention in the editing process. The characters, even those whose appearances are brief, are terrifically drawn and capture all five of the senses. The surroundings are vivid without being overstated. The plot begins like loose fibres which are twisted and bound together to form a rope of the highest quality.
The story strips the human race to the bone. Exposes it for what it is - animals with the capacity to think and use language. We meet obsessions relating to basic drive and self-preservation - sex, mortality, religion and murder.
It reveals what happens behind closed doors, the private moments that so many are keen to keep hidden.
One of the key images in the book is that of Miller Jones. He's not seen for long. Alvin Russell, who found him while serving in the South Pacific, stumbled into him on a patrol. Jones had been skinned alive and fixed to a cross, was covered in flies and his heart was still beating visibly inside his chest. Alvin Russell does the best he can. Shoots Jones in the skull. Hangs around for a while and exacts revenge on those who did the skinning.
It's kind of Old Testament. Hints at one of the book's themes, the interpretation of religion to satisfy personal ends, yet also of the hope that lives within us all. That beating heart is like the flickering of a candle flame. Demonstrates just what we'll try and survive in order to keep going.
There is darkness within the pages, no doubt about it. Hardly a stone of depravity is left unturned. All the same, the scenes are handled perfectly. None of the situations or actions are shied away from, though none of them are revelled in either. It might have been an easy way out to tangle us up in description and detail, yet he draws enough of a sketch for us to see the picture and leaves the colouring in to our own imaginations. These scenes are not graphic or cold, but they hold all the more power for that.
I've seen Mr Pollock compared to practically all of the [male] giants of American literature of the Twentieth Century. I can't add to the list without stepping out of my depth, though I'd be tempted to throw in some European influences also if I were to do so. He clearly belongs to a very special group of authors indeed - those who can tell a story that isn't going to be forgotten any time soon, those whose books will survive more than one generation and those with the ability to reach right into a reader's mind and scratch words onto the inside of the skull lest they might try and forget - and the sooner he's hailed as such in literary circles, the better.
True brilliance.

The Devil All the Time is noir to its core, relentless dark and bleak with hardly a thin crack of light of hope and redemption on the horizon. The book has many positives. It is beautifully written in well crafted and evocative prose, delivered in an even, rhythmic cadence. The story is well rooted in time and place, capturing the rural mid-West in the post-war period, and the murky social relations, petty crime and more that shaped communities and the bonds between family members. The characters are well realised, their weaknesses, vices, foibles and back story nicely penned. The whole book had the feel of craft to it, both the story and the physical artefact - the book is beautifully produced. And yet, for all this, I wasn't fully captured by and immersed in the story. And I should have been: The Devil All the Time is carefully sculpted, literary, crime fiction. Don't get me wrong, this was a very good and engaging read, but it could have been stellar. On reflection, I think the issue was that for most of the book the narrative seemed liked a set of well written, interlinked vignettes stretched out over a fifteen year span, so the arc of the story felt like loose connections rather than being tight, taut web. Pollack does pull all of the threads together, but there's no change in tempo as it nears the end; more a quiet, understated but violent resolution and an opening for the tale to continue. Overall, a polished and evocative slice of country noir that portrays starkly the dark underbelly of rural America.