Knockemstiff
by Donald Ray Pollock
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This is not really the type of book I would normally like, the characters are just utterly hopeless, joyless, and completely dismal. After hearing about this book, I was intrigued, being from Ohio, and Knockemstiff is an actual town is rural...more
All of the interconnected stories are set in the fictitious town of Knockemstiff, Ohio. But as I was reading of this fictitious town I couldn't help but feel the town sounded familiar. It was a little too reminiscent of the town where I grew up. I couldn't help but feel some of the people whom I came in contact with growing up were the type of people on which the c...more
I grew up in Cincinnati, and whenever I read Raymond Carver, all the characters seemed to speak to me with an Appalachian accent. Wrong of course, but it felt right to me.
Now here comes Pollock's "Knockemstiff," set in the hopeless oxycontin hollers of Southern Ohio, and 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--althou...more
Others have remarked how touching the book was;...more
recommends it for: Readers that enjoy brutal fiction
Pollock is truly gifted writer & he really knows his topic. I couldn't put this one down.
I can not wait to read more from him.
recommends it for: nobody really... smug intellectuals maybe.
I don't know though... will this book last in my memory past a month? Maybe not so much, we'll see. Hell, I'm just proud that I got through it. The last half really dragged. (I set the book down between stories but the last ones still seemed drawn out.)


















