What do you get when you put Winesburg, Ohio , a bevy of Jim Thompson characters, and the songs of Big Black and the Drive By Truckers in a blender? You get the brief, brutal and sad stories of Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff. Pollock was born in the actual town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, a town which may have named after a fistfight. The citizens do their best to live up to their town's heritage by filling their days with casual violence, thoughtless sex and a wide range of substance abuse.
It sounds like tough reading, and it is. Some of the stories are tragic as in the case where a mentally damaged recluse stumbles upon a brother and sister rutting in the woods or in the case where a boy tries to earn his father's love by viciously beating another boy. Others are merely sad as when a moves in with one of the town's many brutish thugs in hopes of finally finding a friend. In all these cases, things end poorly.
So why should you read these stories? If you can stand the sadness, it is the characters. Pollock has a real sympathy for his characters, probably developed in working thirty years in a paper mill. He has a clear-eyed view of the lives of the marginalized and the daily challenges they face. He doesn't provide much, if anything, for hope or redemption and even makes a point of the same sad stories repeating across the generations.
This book was short and theoretically you could knock it out in a evening. The stories were just too intense for me to do that. Depending on your viewpoint, that could be good or bad. My vote is good.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Some really sad stories
Posted by Tripp at 10:49 PM
Labels: Literary fiction, short stories
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2 comments:
Hm, I must get this one, I think. I know exactly what you mean by books you enjoy even though you have to "stand the sadness." I might have to wait until the right mood strikes me, but I think this'll be an interesting read. Thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention!
CR,
It is a good book for certain. It helps that it is short, as to much more would have been hard to read.
T
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