The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock is a dark and gritty novel set in southern Ohio and West Virginia, spanning the years after WWII through the 60s. The story follows a cast of disturbing and unsavory characters, including traveling serial killers, crooked sheriffs, traumatized veterans, and religious fanatics. As their paths intersect, the narrative delves into themes of violence, depravity, redemption, and the dark underbelly of rural life. The writing style is described as captivating, brutal, beautifully written, and with a folksy tone that adds depth to the characters and plot.
Genres:
Tropes/Plot Devices:
Topics:
Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
High content warnings for graphic violence, sexual abuse, animal cruelty, and themes of mental illness and trauma.
From The Publisher:
From the acclaimed author of "Knockemstiff"-called "powerful, remarkable, exceptional" by the "Los Angeles Times"-comes a dark and riveting vision of America that delivers literary excitement in the highest degree.
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 over-tones 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 sacrifi-cial blood he pours on his "prayer log." There's Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill-ers, 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.
Ratings (37)
Incredible (13) | |
Loved It (13) | |
Liked It (9) | |
It Was OK (2) |
Reader Stats (88):
Read It (37) | |
Currently Reading (1) | |
Want To Read (44) | |
Not Interested (6) |
1 comment(s)
Great everything. Perfect level of creepiness.
What can you read after
The Devil All the Time?
About the Author:
After quitting school at seventeen, Donald Ray Pollock worked at Mead Paper Mill and as a truck driver in Chillicothe, Ohio. After thirty-two years employed as a labourer he enrolled at Ohio State University to study creative writing. He is the author of two acclaimed books, the cult-classic short-story collection Knockemstiff, which went on to win the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship, and the novel The Devil All The Time. www.donaldraypollock.net
When you click the Amazon link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commision, at no cost to you.
