Product Description

"Knockemstiff" is a pitch-dark and often hilarious collection of stories set in the tiny Appalachian town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, a community so deprived and diminished it no longer appears on any map. 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. The stories in "Knockemstiff" are simple and compact, blunt and brutal, but are also infused with a deep sympathy for the incapacitating loneliness of poverty, neglect and severely limited horizons. "Knockemstiff" is a human, very funny and unforgettable debut from a stunning new voice in American fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341559 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Michael Guinzburg
"KNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock is the best book I have ever read. Transcendant. This is real literature. It will be read for centuries. The straight goods. Masterful writing. This is the America they don't let you see on television. The dignity of the characters will make you weep for humankind."

Arena
`a series of tableaux which make Vernon God Little seem like The Waltons.'

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

Customer Reviews

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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.

A Fantastic Read - loved it!
Utterly brilliant. I couldn't put it down and really was left wanting more. It was at times uncomfortable reading, but always brilliant.

Knocks the stuffing out of you - not in a good way.
While the other reviewers make no bones about the fact that this is a deeply disturbing book, they seem to have a stronger stomach than me.

I'm not prissy and do love a good action novel or a thriller full of gritty realism - the problem here is the characters that populate almost every story in the book. I have no doubt that such drug addicted, violent, rapist, perverts do exist in every town and country in the world and for sure in small town USA - the thing is they are not nice people (most have no redeeming features - save for the fact that they mostly all had hard up-bringings) and I have no desire to meet or read about such sad freakish characters. You simply can not identify with the protagonists in any of the tales.

For sure you find yourself on the edge of your seat...but not in the way that a good thriller does it, but rather in the sort of way that you are when you are in your car and you just know you are going to splatter a small creature that steps out in to the road...you are waiting for sick, inevitable, thud of an unfair death. I fail to see where the other readers found any humour. One of the reviews on the cover compared this author to Denis Johnson (a great author) but again I simply could not see it myself.

This is a well written book for sure (and if you enjoy it then you'll enjoy the wonderful Nick Cave's very disturbing trips in to writing books too) the tales all inter-link, but for me, by the end I was NOT left wanting more but rather I needed a shower and a stiff drink to help me to forget that this dark under-belly of society exists.