Bill 's review
Knockemstiff
by Donald Ray Pollock
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--although they often seem self-consciously grubby, with every other descriptive phrase carrying one adjective too much---are certainly worth your time.
This guy is better than Harry Crews, and I'm going to read whatever he writes from now on.
Bill 's review
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
Bill 's review
rating:
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--although they often seem self-consciously grubby, with every other descriptive phrase carrying one adjective too much---are certainly worth your time.
This guy is better than Harry Crews, and I'm going to read whatever he writes from now on.
