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The Devil All the Time Donald Ray Pollock 9780385535045 Books

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The Devil All the Time Donald Ray Pollock 9780385535045 Books

This compelling piece of fiction, written with a deft hand, takes the cake for disturbing and depraved. Unwavering in his delivery, Donald Ray Pollock gives us a peek at the world, through the eyes of some gnarly and grotesque individuals. What stands out is the casual ease in which the violence and carnage is served up, sans the antics that reek of shock value, making this deliciously dark plot palatable in some strange and unnerving way. That's not to say the reality these people call life is easy to choke down, especially for those of us that have impulse control and a moral compass; so prepare yourself. Sometimes their decisions are born out of desperation and other times it's pure evil at the helm, or the devil all the time, if you will. Most disturbing of all is the twisted rationalization that tends to happen within the mind—the justification that this act, whatever it might be, is the only way to feel a connection to their maker.

“It’s hard to live a good life. It seems like the devil don’t ever let up.”

There’s the husband with the makeshift alter, deep in the woods, where blood is spilled in the name of sacrifice. It’s the only way this devoted husband can see to save his wife from the painful end she’s staring down. And his son, forever changed by the bloody horrors he's had to witness, was the one and only character I found myself clinging to—rooting for some sort of redeeming end.

Creepiest of all, the traveling pastor that claims faith alone helped him to overcome his very real fear of spiders. Now he shocks congregations by covering his body with the eight-legged freaks (*cringe*) or eating them (*gag*) to prove his message. Have I mentioned how much I hate spiders? My fear runs so deep, my skin is crawling even writing this. And you can’t forget the pastor’s strange sidekick—a man that opted to drink poison to prove his faith, earning him a pair of shriveled legs and a bad attitude.

Then there’s the husband and wife that spend their ‘vacations’ trolling the highway for ‘models’. She's the bait for the next man deemed lucky enough to sate the disgusting photographer and his relentless quest for the perfect picture.

There’s a host of death, destruction and evil deeds connecting two small towns in Ohio and West Virginia, and the way the author pieces the multiple storylines together is shocking in all its perfection. Some might even say fitting, for this dangerously dark cast.


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The Devil All the Time Donald Ray Pollock 9780385535045 Books Reviews

I first read this book in August 2011. Although it is a very dark tale of violence and depravity among rural poor in West Virginia and southeast Ohio, I had remembered it as very well-written and compellingly plotted, with vivid characters who rang true. I do not often re-read books within a decade but decided that I would revisit this one after six years. The novel stood-up well to the second reading and strongly reinforced my earlier impressions.

The story centers around Arvin Russel, born in Coal Creek, WV in the 1950s to a recently returned GI and a waitress he’d met in Coal Creek on his bus ride home to Meade, Ohio. Arvin’s earliest vivid memory of his father, Willard, is from a time when he was in the woods with his father and they overheard a couple of hunters making crude sexual comments about Willard’s attractive wife, Charlotte. Initially Willard doesn’t react but later that day he finds the hunters at a local dive and runs one of them alone and beats him senseless. The other runs away. The lesson the incident teaches Arvin is that he should not take guff from anyone but also to carefully choose his moment to respond so that he is at an advantage.
Charlotte soon becomes ill with cancer (there’s little money for doctors or medical diagnoses) and Willard tries to save her through animal sacrifices at a “Prayer Log” he has set up in the woods by their rented home. Willard’s efforts traumatize Arvin but fail Charlotte and she dies. Willard slits his own throat at the Prayer Log shortly thereafter. Arvin, orphaned, is sent to live with his grandmother and great uncle in Meade.
Along with Arvin’s story, another main plot line follows a low-life couple in Meade, Carl and Sandy Harrison, who go on a multi-state serial murder spree, picking up and killing male hitchhikers. Carl photographs the hitchhikers in sexual encounters with Sandy and then shoots them and takes gruesome photos that he later uses for his personal gratification. There are two or three other related plot lines. Pollock deftly intertwines them, bringing the major characters together in the end.
The strength of the novel is in the writing. Pollock skillfully captures the thoughts, emotions, motivations, quirks and peculiarities of the characters. The novel and its people reminded me in many ways of Erskine Caldwell’s Gods Little Acre and Tobacco Road novels, set in rural Georgia a few decades earlier. After reading the novel I felt like I knew the individuals well but also was relieved to be finished with them - at least until Pollock writes a sequel, which Arvin deserves.
I’ve read that the novel is being turned into a movie starring James Pattinson, presumably as Arvin. The trick will be in translating the story to film in a reasonably palatable form. Again, the strength of the novel is Pollock’s writing and character development. If the filmmaker cannot evoke sympathy for Arvin and a few others in the story, it may just come across as gratuitously vulgar and violent.
What a find......I already know here's another author that I will go through everything they've written.

I'm obsessed with this genre....."Country Noir".......hope that term has not gotten worn out like "foodie". Although I grew up in the south, I was not exactly rural, although I was exposed to and knew people that were.....rural in all senses of the term. Some kind, some mean, some dumb, some genius, all generally poor, self-sufficient, interesting. But this fiction of the best and the worst kinds of people, when set in this backdrop of rural Alabama, or Missouri, or Tennessee.......just for some reason resonates with me. The imagery, the dialogue, the characters......

This one is a great one...it's a bit depraved and dark, but I guess that's where the "noir" comes in. Anyway if you a fan of Daniel Woodrell, William Gay, etc. you will not be disappointed. The pages fly by.
This compelling piece of fiction, written with a deft hand, takes the cake for disturbing and depraved. Unwavering in his delivery, Donald Ray Pollock gives us a peek at the world, through the eyes of some gnarly and grotesque individuals. What stands out is the casual ease in which the violence and carnage is served up, sans the antics that reek of shock value, making this deliciously dark plot palatable in some strange and unnerving way. That's not to say the reality these people call life is easy to choke down, especially for those of us that have impulse control and a moral compass; so prepare yourself. Sometimes their decisions are born out of desperation and other times it's pure evil at the helm, or the devil all the time, if you will. Most disturbing of all is the twisted rationalization that tends to happen within the mind—the justification that this act, whatever it might be, is the only way to feel a connection to their maker.

“It’s hard to live a good life. It seems like the devil don’t ever let up.”

There’s the husband with the makeshift alter, deep in the woods, where blood is spilled in the name of sacrifice. It’s the only way this devoted husband can see to save his wife from the painful end she’s staring down. And his son, forever changed by the bloody horrors he's had to witness, was the one and only character I found myself clinging to—rooting for some sort of redeeming end.

Creepiest of all, the traveling pastor that claims faith alone helped him to overcome his very real fear of spiders. Now he shocks congregations by covering his body with the eight-legged freaks (*cringe*) or eating them (*gag*) to prove his message. Have I mentioned how much I hate spiders? My fear runs so deep, my skin is crawling even writing this. And you can’t forget the pastor’s strange sidekick—a man that opted to drink poison to prove his faith, earning him a pair of shriveled legs and a bad attitude.

Then there’s the husband and wife that spend their ‘vacations’ trolling the highway for ‘models’. She's the bait for the next man deemed lucky enough to sate the disgusting photographer and his relentless quest for the perfect picture.

There’s a host of death, destruction and evil deeds connecting two small towns in Ohio and West Virginia, and the way the author pieces the multiple storylines together is shocking in all its perfection. Some might even say fitting, for this dangerously dark cast.