Knockemstiff

Don't waste your time on this misogynistic and nihilistic book.
An exposition of how low life can become when lived in ignorance and without hope.

Yes, there really is a town in Ohio called Knockemstiff. And author Donald Ray Pollock hails from there. Based on his debut collection of short stories, you wouldn't want to visit. Pollock has created one of the most perverse and depraved cast of characters you'll ever meet. There are shades of the Southern Gothic of Flannery O'Connor, the eccentric grotesques of "Geek Love," and the shocking violence of Cormac McCarthy, but Pollock is a distinctive writer with a very bleak world view. You might want a few belts of cheap whiskey before reading. I prefer his other books, which are a kind of white trash noir: "The Heavenly Table" and "The Devil All the Time." Don't worry, there are plenty of sick characters in these too.

Probably the sickest, most depraved and cringe filled book I've ever read. I read things in here I did not want to know people even thought about doing. It covered every deranged topic from violence, drug addiction, abuse, child abuse, suicide, mental illness, traumatic brain injury to a disturbing chapter on Alzheimer's. Thanks to Jerry Garcia and enough LSD-25 in the 80's to make Satan weep, I have absolutely no short, intermediate or long term memory left. Which makes the chapter on Alzheimer's all the more disturbing for me. However on the plus side I will have forgotten this book completely by weeks end.

I did not like this book at all. I kept reading thinking maybe the next chapter would improve, but it never did.

I read this book on lunch breaks in cafes and coffeehouses near my work. Reading this gave me that 'brown bag feeling' I imagine customers feel when exiting porn shops. I was afraid at any moment someone would look over my shoulder and publicly shame me. It's only a tad alarming to enjoy something so depraved, but the writing and story telling are compelling. Stop judging me.