The Devil All the Time
Publishers Weekly, Best Books 2011, by Louisa Ermelino
“Pollock gives us over to despair and destitution and an undiluted primal evil; he raises the grotesque to art. You can’t believe what you’re reading but you do, and you can’t stop reading it.” (continued)
The Washington Post, by Robert Goolrick
“You may be repelled, you may be shocked, you will almost certainly be horrified, but you will read every last word.” (continued)
The New York Times, Sunday Book Review, by Josh Ritter
A Good Man is Impossible to Find
“… a crimson procession of evils so brutally creative… exactingly and lovingly detailed by Pollock.”
LA Times, by Caroline Kellogg
“… where any prime-time television show can incite nail-biting with a lurking killer, Pollock has done much more.” (continued)
The New York Times, Charles McGrath
Writer Remains the Literary Voice of Knockemstiff
“Mr. Pollock’s new novel is, if anything, even darker than the [Knockemstiff] stories, and its violence and religious preoccupations venture into Flannery O’Connor territory.”
Books and Culture, Jerry Walls
Redemption in Knockemstiff
GQ, Daniel Riley
The Badass Book of the Month: The Devil All the Time
“Donald Ray Pollack’s terrifying new novel is an unsettling masterwork. See our exclusive excerpt for a sneak peek into a dark mind.”
WYSO Book Nook with Vick Mickunas
An audio interview of Don about his debut novel, on Vick Mickunas’ author interview program with WYSO, Miami Valley Public Radio in Ohio.
USA Today, Bob Minzesheimer
The Devil Unleashed in Appalachia
“Donald Ray Pollack’s terrifying new novel is an unsettling masterwork. See our exclusive excerpt for a sneak peek into a dark mind.”
The Columbus Dispatch, Margaret Quamme
“Beneath the gothic horror is an Old Testament sense of a moral order in the universe, even if the restoration of that order itself requires violence.” (continued)
Dayton Daily News, Vick MicKunas
“Pollock has expanded on… storytelling gift for his debut novel, “The Devil All the Time.” A gallery of reprobates and religious fanatics… are multidimensional, flawed human beings.” (continued )
Amazon.com
Amazon.com lists The Devil All The Time as one of the Best Books of the Month (July 2011)!
Elle, Lisa Shea
“Pollock. . . doesn’t get a word wrong in this super-edgy American Gothic stunner.” (continued)
Philadelphia Citypaper, Summer Book Quarterly 2011, Justin Bauer
“For a first novel so soaked in stale sweat and bright fresh blood, Pollock’s sweat is well-earned, and his blood is wise.” (continued)
Esquire, Three Books Every Man Should Read, Aaron Gwyn
“. . . a smorgasbord of grotesque characters trapped in a pressure-cooker plot. . . . Watching Arvin Eugene Russell, the essentially good but nonetheless troubled protagonist, search for redemption among these thugs is brutal fun.”
Publisher’s Weekly, Fiction Review
(Starred Review) “If Pollock’s powerful collection Knockemstiff was a punch to the jaw, his follow-up, a novel set in the violent soul-numbing towns of southern Ohio and West Virginia, feels closer to a mule’s kick…” (continued)
William Gay, Author of Provinces of Night and The Long Home
“This novel fulfills the promise made by Pollock’s debut collection, Knockemstiff. He is a real writer, and The Devil All The Time hits you like a telegram from Hell slid under your door at three o’clock in the morning.”
Knockemstiff
Associated Press
Working Knockemstiff
AP Writer Matt Leingang
The Wall Street Journal
A New American Voice
“Early reviews by publications such as Publishers Weekly have been encouraging. In theme and tone, “Knockemstiff” is related to the works of writers such as Chris Offutt, Daniel Woodrell, and William Gay, who write about characters living at the margins of society.”
The New York Times, Jonathan Miles
“Pollock’s voice is fresh and full-throated, and while these stories travel negligible distances, even from one another, the best of them leave an indelible smear.” (continued)
The New York Times, Steven Rosen
“Donald Ray Pollock’s book of hard-edged, violent short stories is drawing attention to a dilapidated Appalachian town once forgotten.” (continued)
Telegraph
“To get an idea of Donald Ray Pollock’s astonishing first book, one could try to imagine a drunken punch-up between a redneck Hemingway and an amphetamine-fuelled Raymond Carver.” (continued)
WOSU Public Media, WOSU book critic Kassie Rose
“The renowned author Joyce Carol Oates has written that one of the little-understood responsibilities of the artist is to bear witness… Donald Ray Pollock has done just that for a way of life rarely acknowledged, and he’s done it superbly. ” (continued)
Dayton Daily News
“These stories detonate… Pollock writes with incendiary verbal pyromania.”"This is a fantastic debut.” (continued)
The Oregonian
“When I picked up Knockemstiff… I was anticipating a good read. But I wasn’t prepared for the driving force with which these dazzling stories would plunge me into another place”" (continued)
