The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband and wife team of serial killers, trawl America's highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. The spider handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso guitar playing sidekick are running from the law.

It takes until the 80% mark before the stories weave together but it's worth the wait.

Skip the Netflix movie version of the book it's awful.

Rounded up to five stars. My favorite type of horror is creature/monster horror, but I think my second favorite is humans who are monstrous. This book is populated with monstrous people who commit horrible acts and just get to keep living their normal lives. I think I was shocked by what was happening in ONE TOWN for the first half of the book and then just accepted that some people are just shitty and sometimes they are drawn to a place for some reason.

I think it is a strange comparison, but it reminded me a little bit of the experience reading A Little Life. Everything is a bummer, but for some reason I want to know what happens next even though I am pretty sure it is not going to end well for anyone. This book did not make me cry, though, so there's that.

The author describes the place and the people so well and in so much detail (without going on and on), that I felt I could really picture the exact place and what everyone looked like and how they walked around in their everyday life which I think kept me interested, as well.

I recommend reading it, but I don't think this is a book for everyone. It is dark and depressing, but so well-written.