The Devil All the Time

So dark and fun, one of the recommendations from a list of True Detective fans.

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.

Old time religion
ill-intentioned, soaked in blood
try praying harder.

A much, much darker read than I usually go for but despite that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Pollock does a wonderful job of humanizing his psychopaths and his pacing is spot on. Highly recommended for those with strong stomachs.

First 5 star read of the year baby!

Excellent writing by Pollock about a bunch of depraved, depressing people and places. He nails the characters on the head.

West Virginia is a third world country

I had been wanting to read The Devil All the Time for quite some time. Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed.

Further, this was the first Donald Ray Pollock that I had read. His sensibilities about areas with which I am familiar (i.e., southern West Virginia as well as Appalachian Ohio) were acute and engaging. I understood that he had contacted the historical society in Greenbrier County, West Virginia in an effort to get those portions of the novel right, and I appreciated that.

For a first novel, it was an excellent effort. Generally, I enjoyed the storytelling, the pace, the imagery, etc. Generally, I think Pollock succeeded in presenting a grittier side of life without making a caricature of it. Pollock's own heritage in these economically depressed areas informs a realistic yet romantic depiction of the people that live in them.

Pollock successfully integrated a number of themes throughout the novel: moderation vs. excess; the haves vs. the have nots; grin and bear it. Two of these, in particular, stood out to me: “grin and bear it, work a little harder” and “have vs. have not”.

I was struck by the general moods displayed by characters throughout the novel. First, there was the ultra-religious group - the type of character that exemplifies the start of the Baby Boomer generation: religion, hierarchical family structure, etc. - and second, on the other end of the spectrum, the dirty, gritty, evil-leaning group. In between, there are characters like Willard Russell and Sheriff Lee Bodecker who exemplify both. All characters seem to think that when things go wrong, just grin and bear it...do what you're doing a little more or a little harder and “it” will get better. Willard's incessant efforts to pray Charlotte back to health were the primary examples of this theme.

Moderation vs. excess was explored again and again. Pollock included the almost cliche notion that a simple life is richer than a wealthy life, but he spun it in a way that we don't often see in literature. The Russell clan had very little, but rather than having a fulfilling life, Pollock wrote about how hard they had to work just to get by. There was no transcendent spirituality experienced by any of the Russells; they did not find any meaning in life. They simply worked hard and....nothing. Just hard work. Further, within this theme, Pollock explored the various definitions of “having” something. The Carl and Sandy characters had nothing until they took their “vacations”, in which case they still had nothing, but found thrills in photographing and killing “models” along the road. Once Arvin moved to West Virginia, he still had very little but he became a fierce defender of what he did have (e.g., protecting his “sister” Lenora). While Carl and Sandy made their own “something”, Arvin best played the hand he was dealt.

Some of the characters in the novel were born to be buried. Lenora, for example, was a tragedy from day one, her life shrouded in death from a very young age with the death of her mother. Her character also represented the death of the goodness of religion in the novel. Even though a number of characters questioned (and even exploited) religion, Lenora's suicide represented the end of the last best hope for the story's faith. Arvin was also on a course toward a fall (and follow the example of this father). With his first kill (i.e., Teagardin), he was destined to kill others. (Pollock's depiction of Arvin's moral indecision regarding the murder of Teagardin was excellent; the reader could honestly think Arvin would decide against it up until the shot was fired.) Arvin still had hope when killing and escaping Bodecker, but the novel ends with a realization that Arvin had a hard road ahead of him. Finally, even the characters represented as wholly “good” - Emma, Charlotte - were worn down to nothing (Charlotte in a literal sense as she died of cancer and Emma through losing her entire family) by the end of the novel. All characters started with something and ended with nothing.

This was a book that triggered a number of mind-races. I could go on an on and on in this review...but I won't. Suffice to say, this is a book worth reading. I look forward to reading his short story collection Knockemstiff (which actually pre-dated The Devil All the Time.

Willard Russel, mantan tentara saksi kekejaman perang, sudah menumpahkan banyak darah tapi tak sanggup menyelamatkan istrinya dari kematian.
Carl dan Sandy Henderson, pasangan pembunuh berantai yang setiap musim panas mengincar para korbannya di jalanan.
Roy dan Theodore, pengkhotbah keliling yang melarikan diri dan dijadikan buronan.
Di dunia mereka yang menggila, sesosok pemuda terjebak di tengahnya, dipaksa untuk mengerti bahwa kebaikan dan kejahatan sesungguhnya memiliki batas yang fana.
Buku yang sangat sulit untuk dicerna. Isinya penuh dengan hal yang miris dan kehidupan yang sulit. Kukira awalnya ini adalah thriller, ternyata lebih ke slice of life.
Namun dari buku ini pembaca jadi tahu mengenai kehidupan di kota kecil. Keterbatasan dan keputusasaan penduduknya, hingga sedikit hiburan yang bisa didapatkan, walau dengan cara yang tidak umum.

I felt pretty disappointed by this one. My main problem with this book was the writing. The writing was so stark and distant that none of the horror hit in any meaningful way. It sort of just felt like “Okay, cool. That happened. Next.” Also, so much of this book was in the summary. The events of the first 60 pages are described, and then so much of the rest of the book is introducing characters and “revealing” things about them I already knew from the back of the book! I don't know, this book just never did anything to particularly strike me, although I didn't hate it and it definitely had some elements I liked. I thought the ending would be a little bit more explosive or mind-blowing, and I did enjoy a lot of it, but more of it just felt like wrapping up characters storylines. I also felt like the preacher and his disabled brother were such a drag on the story, like I truly don't know what the point of keeping them in the book for the whole book was. :((

Dark, dark Appalachian Southern Gothic.

This is great. Superbly written, good plot lines, good character interaction. All good. It is however packed with violence, so be prepared. It is page after page of gems like the following:

The light was starting to fade by the time he set the camera down and finished things off. He wiped his hands and knife on the boys shirt, then walked around until he found a discarded Westinghouse refrigerator half buried in the trash. With the shovel from the car, he cleared the top off and pried the door open while Sandy went through the boy's pants. “That's it?” Carl said when she handed him a plastic whistle and an Indian head penny....The flamingo lady's wild bushy hair was dyed pink, and she wore a bikini that had ragged pigeon feathers glued to the flesh colored material. Her act consisted mostly of standing on one leg in a little rubber swimming pool filled with dirty water while preening herself with her pointy beak. A record player sat on a table behind her playing slow, sad violin music that sometimes made her cry if she had accidentally taken too many of her nerve pills that day. Just as he had feared, Theodore figured out after a couple of months that Roy was tapping it, thought try as he might, he could never actually catch them in the filthy act.