A Voice & Vibe Book Review
The Devil All the Time. Donald Ray Pollock. 2001.
Debut. Country noir.
In the rural Midwest, a traumatized WWII veteran, a pair of highway serial killers, and corrupt preachers collide as an orphaned young man fights to protect his family from a cycle of dark violence and religious fanaticism.
This story is told in omniscient third from the perspective of a half dozen different broken characters all of whom view the violence of their world without a trace of human sentimentality.
This lack of sentimentality, beginning in the prologue, sets a relentlessly dark tone that dismisses faith in a savior God and insists on survival as an individual responsibility—in a kill-or-be-killed world, which is populated entirely by the monstrous and the weak.
As a mature male author, I really want to cheer for Donald Ray Pollock, a late bloomer who published his debut novel at the age of 57. His second novel (The Heavenly Table, 2016) didn’t really do it for me, as you may know from my earlier review. But this, his debut novel, is much better in every way I hoped it would be.
Now I am curious about the 2020 Netflix adaptation.
AUTHORS – I write short book reviews that focus on voice and vibe. They are useful to querying authors searching for comp titles. There are more like this on my website.
REMINDER – If you follow my reviews, you already know this. I have a policy about reviewing debut novels. Provided I finish them, I always rate debut novels with maximum stars, regardless. When I don’t finish a debut novel, I don’t review it. No exceptions. And I don’t review books I don’t pay full price for.