La prosa di Donald Ray Pollock immerge i lettori nelle realtà crude, spesso brutali, di vite marginalizzate, attingendo alle sue esperienze personali nel lavorare in fabbriche e mulini. Le sue narrazioni sono permeate da un'autenticità viscerale, esplorando temi di disperazione, fede e la ricerca di redenzione negli angoli dimenticati dell'America. Con uno stile scarno e senza fronzoli, cattura il vernacolo e la stanchezza di personaggi che lottano con le loro circostanze. Il lavoro di Pollock rivela una profonda empatia per i diseredati, rendendo le loro lotte con un'onestà inflessibile e una potenza oscuramente risonante.
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.
KNOCKEMSTIFF is a pitch-dark and often hilarious collection of stories set in the tiny Appalachian town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, a community so deprived and diminished it no longer appears on any map. The youth of Knockemstiff grow up in the malignant shadow of their parents; raised on abuse, alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, they are stunted in every possible way: emotionally, mentally, sometimes physically. They talk a lot about escape but they never so much as cross the county line. The stories in KNOCKEMSTIFF are simple and compact, blunt and brutal, but are also infused with a deep sympathy for the incapacitating loneliness of poverty, neglect and severely limited horizons. KNOCKEMSTIFF is a human, very funny and unforgettable debut from a stunning new voice in American fiction.
Roman
Ausgezeichnet mit dem Deutschen Krimi Preis 2017 Georgia, 1917. Der Farmer Pearl Jewett will sich durch seine Armut auf Erden einen Platz an der himmlischen Tafel verdienen – und seine drei Söhne darben mit ihm, ob sie wollen oder nicht. Nachdem Pearl von den Entbehrungen ausgezehrt stirbt, müssen sich die jungen Männer allein durchs Leben schlagen. Auf gestohlenen Pferden und schwer bewaffnet plündern sie sich ihren Weg durchs Land ...