'The Devil All the Time' by Donald Ray Pollock
Synopsis: In The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock has written a novel that marries the twisted intensity of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers with the religious and Gothic overtones of Flannery O’Connor at her most haunting.
Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial killers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.
Donald Ray Pollock braids his plotlines into a taut narrative that will leave readers astonished and deeply moved. With his first novel, he proves himself a master storyteller in the grittiest and most uncompromising American grain.
About The Author: Donald Ray Pollock grew up in Knockemstiff, Ohio, and quit high school at seventeeen to work in a meatpacking plant. He then spent thirty-two years employed as a laborer at the Mead Paper Corporation in Chillicothe, Ohio, before enrolling in the MFA program at Ohio State University. His first book, a collection of stories called Knockemstiff, won the 2009 PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship. Though pretty much a Luddite when it comes to most computer stuff, he is now on Facebook (facebook.com/DonaldRayPollock) and also has a website at www.donaldraypollock.com.
Donald is going to be replying to questions through email (through Richard and myself). Like the bio above says, he's not too tech savy, but he does want to be involved. So if you have a question, please post it below.
Discussion is now happening!
Get to reading!
Finishing up Knock Em Stiff so I'm pretty excited about this one. Great book choice.
Yeah I got both Pollack books for Christmas. I've read Knockemstiff, and enjoyed it. I shall be reading this before the 15th of Feb for sure. Looking forward to it.
I've said it a few dozen times, but I'll say it again: Best Fiction of 2011 - The Devil All the Time.
I'll be re-reading it for this thread.
this will be a lot of fun. i'll be helping to channel the spirit of DRP. loved knockemstiff, and TDATT is really excellent too. i just met Don at a reading in Indiana a few months back, release party for Frank Bill's CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA, and he's just so cool and generous and nice. he blurbed a story of mine up at Amazon. this will be a good time. so...start reading!
Fuck yeah! This one also made my best of the year list.
Was waiting for this one to be a selection. Loved Knockemstiff and looking forward to Devil All The Time.
Read Knockemstiff last year and finished Devil last night (power was out and I was using a battery powered camp light). Can't wait to get in on this discussion once the 15th roles around! And the fact that Don is going to actually be involved - that's fucking amazing!! Just one more reason why I love LR and has turned into facebook for me!
Sweet. A book club discussion I can really get into. Totally re-reading this for Feb. I can't say enough good things about this book.
Really looking forward to this. Buying the book now
Fantastic, just so happened to buy this one the other day. Looking forward to it!
Hey, Mike! Long time no see ahaha. Great buy, man. You're going to love it. I sure did. Glad to see the excitement around this one.
Some things to think about as you're reading (or revisiting).
What chapters/stories did you like the best, and why?
Some (most? all?) of the stories overlap—think/talk about that.
Which of the story lines did you get into the most, and why?
great. Bought this for myself a while back and have been waiting to read it. It's on.
When should we have the book done by to participate in the discussion?
In on this! Ordered it, looking forward to reading it!
Officially - the discussion starts on Feb 15th.
But, really, there are no concrete rules. If you finish the book in a few months even, feel free to look this thread up and add to it. :)
ALSO, I reviewed this book for TNB, so if you'd like to read my thoughts on it there, after you're done, here's a link to that as well:
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/rthomas/2011/08/devil_pollock/
“Some people were born just so they could be buried…”
What Donald Ray Pollock has created in The Devil All the Time is a dark, engaging portrait of human nature. He shows us what happens when there is nothing to believe in, when there is little chance of things getting better, when instead of the grace of God whispering in your ear it’s the devil—all the time. This novel is not for the weak of mind or heart. It is for the devout, those with strong character and a firm grip on their own ascent into heaven.
Ok, you've got me convinced. I'm gonna go to the shop now and get a copy.
Only, I'm gonna read it in the italian translation, do I have to do penance for that? ;-)
Three Hail Marys and Two Motherfuckers.
I started this last night and couldn't put it down. I'll wait until Feb 15 to start talking about it but for now, halfway through, I'll just say Holy Hell.
I've ordered the book directly from Lucifer. Killing.. time while waiting.
Good to see you in this thread, Nathan and Richard! Going to start the book this week, and hopefully be as impressed as everyone on here seems to be!
Cheers,
-Mike
I finished the book yesterday - very impressive stuff. A fast, immersive read.
Definitely looking forward to this discussion now. I have a couple of questions for folks but I'm storing them up for February.
Coincidentally just started and finished this book this past week. So, what the hell, might as well be a part of the book club discussion.
-Bill
Just finished. Can't wait to hear what everybody has to say about this one!
Just finished this two minutes ago. Overall, I'd give it 3 stars out of 5 (although it was firmly at 4 stars until the last fifty pages or so). Interested in other's thoughts on it and looking forward to the discussion.
Your rating went down after reading the last 50 pages...
Yes. I found the ending very predictable and sort of perfunctory.
eh, can't please them all! lol
I guess it'll make the discussion next month that much more interesting.
Yah, agreed. Part of me wonders if I didn't like it as much as I should have just 'cause of my contrarian streak ;) That being said, I still thought it was a good novel.
I am definitely looking forward to the discussion to see what others thought worked and didn't work. Wish it would get started sooner!
if you all want to start posting up questions, i can funnel them to don so that on feb 15 we have some answers all set to get this thing running. i'd say maybe limit it to 1-3 questions per person? what do you think, pete? or if we don't get that many questions, maybe allow more. i didn't want to hit him with 100 questions right out of the gate.
pete, why are we starting 2/12 instead of the 1st of each month? did i miss something? just curious
I can ask later if everyone wants to wait, otherwise, I'm really interested in his take on the differences between writing a short story collection and writing a novel. What he found most difficult. What he found least difficult. What surprised him, etc. Just generally his process for each. I know this is vague, so hopefully others will have a general idea of what I'm getting at and can improve on it.
Richard - I'm using the format that Dennis asked me to use for how the Book Club is run.
I'm also totally fine with us starting to collect questions. I think that's a great idea, that way we don't bombard him with a ton all at once.
Okay, cool. Just wasn't sure why the 12th, if it was random or for some reason.
And I put the 15th! haha
I talk to Don a couple times on Facebook. Really awesome guy.
Here's three questions...
1. You didn't start writing until later in life, after which you were able to pull from life experience. What kind of stuff do you think you would have written if you started in your early twenties and what prompted the decision to write in the first place?
2. What is the worst job you ever had and under what circumstances did you leave that job?
3. Your work has been compared to Flannery O'Conner and described as "hillbilly noir", etc. For fans of your work, what kind of books, films, etc, do you enjoy that we wouldn't expect based on the kind of stuff you write?
Dennis, Richard, and I discussed it and from now on the Book Club Discussions will start on the 1st.
The next month's books will be announced on the 1st too.
So discussion for this is going to start Wednesday.
Also - those questions are gold Americantypo!
If the guy worked a paper mill for god knows how many years, you gotta wonder what he considers the "worst job" ever and how he left it.
i'll funnel what we have to don right now. post up more as you get them, people.
I was gonna wait to re-read Devil, but I'll start tonight.
My question is: How many family members have yelled at you, "I can't believe you told that story! That's a family secret."
So, the discussion is supposed to start today, right? How do we kick it off? Do we all give reviews of the book or how does it work? Never been in a book group before.
Well, now I want to find out why you felt the book flopped in the last few pages. haha
There was some crossover in characters between Knockemstiff and The Devil all the Time. Namely the gas station clerk, though his name escapes me at present. Is this something that you plan on doing in future works? Akin to Faulkner and his use of the various inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County.
Many thanks, I enjoyed both works immensely.
@Pete - To me, the ending felt a bit tacked-on and I couldn't help but feel that this would have been better as three separate novels (one about Arvin, one about Carl and Sandy, and one about Roy and Theodore). That way, Pollock could have better developed each of these characters and really probed their emotions and motivations without feeling the need to arbitrarily bring them together at the end. Each story was independently interesting, but none of them were stand-out because Pollock doesn't really have the time to flesh each of them out fully in one novel. I'd love to see a novel about Roy and Theodore and Carl and Sandy (although Arvin would probably be better as a short story). As it is, the ending felt predictable and perfunctory and I lost interest in it about fifty pages from the end.
While the story itself is engaging and interesting, it's ultimately forgettable. There's no real idea or character I'm going to take from it that's going to make me think about it later on. That's a shame because Pollock is such a talented writer that I believe he has more than just a "good" novel in him. I believe he has the potential to write a "great" novel, and I look forward to reading his next one. Still a big fan.
Well written.
See I loved the way they all came together like that.
Admittedly, Roy and Theodore didn't need to be involved in the novel at all - but I loved their characters. They were so complicated I guess. They would surely make a great stand alone story - whether it be a novel or a short.
I pretty much feel the same way about Carl and Sandy too. They would have a great story of their own to tell.
Arvin - not so much. He was a great character in the book. But, he couldn't hold his own story I don't think.
@Pete and/or Richard,
I don't know if you are done with the questions for Donald, but if not, I have one that perhaps has already been posed:
Donald, when you attended college did you ever go to any keggers? In other words, how immersed, if at all, did you become in the University life? Or was it for you purely academic?
You're funny.
Richard is going to take care of all the questions. It'll be easier with just one of us handling that.
But, yeah, keep 'em coming!
I just ordered knockemstiff then I'll read this one.
