Knockemstiff

This is the book Dennis Lehane wished he wrote when he wrote Coronado. The format is reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (it even takes place in Ohio). It is a series of loosely interrelated stories that collectively create a portrait of the community of Knockemstiff. It is a collection of sad sacks and losers living dead end lives in a town where the only thing that is happening is entropy. Bruce Springsteen once wrote a song in which the characters suffer all sorts of misfortunes,yet “at the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe.” The people of Knockemstiff rarely find those reasons, yet they keep on living and there's something compelling in that.

Ha, I had no idea Knockenstiff, Ohio was not fictional - and I must say I thought it was a ridiculous name for a fictional town - little did I know Donald Ray Pollock wrote about a fictional town with the real name of his home town. This put me on the back foot a little, starting this review.

I would compare this book to RK Narayan's Malgudi Days for format, but not content! By which I mean it is made up of chapters, each containing a single short story, set in the same town, with some common characters and mixing stories. In this case they are almost exclusively grit-lit characters - alcoholics, drug abusers, petty criminals, those with jobs (not too many) are in minimum wage, dead end jobs. The timeframe is hard to pin down, but there are generational stories, which suggest they range from the 1960's to the 1990's. Each story more disturbing than the next, and all told in a detached and matter of fact way, which seemed to give them more power.

There is talk of ‘escape' from many of the characters - escape largely from Knockemstiff, but escape from the generational misfortune and bleak lives, and the likelihood of repeating the life of their parents - which doesn't appeal, but escape seldom eventuates, unless you consider hooking up with a trucker and going interstate counts.

As you have probably detected, none of these stories are happy, or have happy endings. Drug and alcohol abuse, crime, violence, sexual abuse and violence - hopeless lives. And yet there is comedy cloaked in this misfortune - there are genuinely funny occurrences and ironies contained, but perhaps only for the reader who can avoid the other triggering aspects of the book. The writing is mean, and it exposes the inner thoughts, even the soul of the characters.

I would struggle to recommend it to those who can't absorb the above features of the narrative, the casual brutality of these lives. Those who have read Pollock's The Devil All the Time will already know what to expect. This was Pollock's first novel, so it doesn't have quite the same polish that Devil has though.

4 stars