{"id":124,"date":"2024-05-03T00:48:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T00:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/?p=124"},"modified":"2024-05-03T00:48:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T00:48:08","slug":"donald-ray-pollock-the-devil-all-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/donald-ray-pollock-the-devil-all-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good people rarely have happy endings.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Devil All the Time <\/span><\/i>by<\/span> Donald Ray Pollock is a deliciously repulsive collection of stories that showcases what truly desperate people do at their lowest point. Pollock\u2019s historical thriller is constructed in seven separate parts, each with its own characters and decade, all taking place in rural Ohio. This novel is filled with horror, gore, and depravity, making it unsuitable for those with a weak stomach. The characters span from a serial-killing couple to a psychotic, sacrificial preacher, and while the book does bounce from person to person, it also follows one main character. Pollock loosely traces the life of Arvin, the traumatized protagonist, from birth to adulthood, detailing the horrors he witnesses and endures.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Pollock does a fantastic job writing horror. Before looking at other reviews, I just assumed it was your run-of-the-mill crime novel with an unsolved murder and a witty detective. Once I saw the gore warnings, I knew I had to read it\u2014and it didn\u2019t disappoint. The imagery paints a grotesque picture that goes far beyond anything you could think of. The carnage would be almost gratuitous if it weren\u2019t for the fact that Pollock uses it to further the theme of the novel.<\/span><\/p>\n

I often run into an issue with books written by male authors; they fail to account for their female audience, and it shows. This is especially true for books that fall into the crime, horror, and thriller genres. There is a fine line between writing realistic and historically accurate sexism, racism, and homophobia in the <\/span>characters\u2019<\/span><\/i> dialogues and writing it because it\u2019s the <\/span>author\u2019s<\/span><\/i> inner dialogue. There are plenty of books where the author vaults over this line with absolutely zero hesitation, and it\u2019s clear that they wrote it to fulfill some sick discriminatory fantasy they have in real life. But Pollock does not do this. He writes about potentially triggering topics, but all of it is related to the plot or theme in some way. He doesn\u2019t write violence for the sake of writing violence, unlike many male crime writers, which is why I love this book and why I respect him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than a jump-scare filled, ghost-and-demon horror novel, <\/span>The Devil All the Time <\/span><\/i>is purely realistic, macabre horror. That\u2019s what makes it so effective\u2014the possibility that it could happen to the reader. When I read supernatural horror, I\u2019m generally not too disturbed because I know logically that it could never happen to me in real life. I don\u2019t believe in monsters, so I could never be killed by one. In <\/span>The Devil All the Time<\/span><\/i>, though, the people <\/span>are<\/span><\/i> the monsters. These types of people\u2014no matter how rare\u2014exist in real life, and if I ever came across one, they very well could (and likely would) disembowel me. It\u2019s a tough reality to grapple with, and I believe it\u2019s because of this that a lot of people (according to Goodreads) dislike the book. It\u2019s a little too graphic, a little too <\/span>lifelike<\/span><\/i>\u2014and that scares people.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a book with a happy ending, this is not for you. The characters you hate almost always win, and the ones you root for rarely do. But that\u2019s the lesson here, isn\u2019t it? Fucked-up people do fucked-up things in order to get what they want. <\/span>The Devil All the Time <\/span><\/i>is a very \u201ckill or be killed\u201d book. It\u2019s just not possible in Pollock\u2019s universe to be a good person <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> have a happy ending. It\u2019s one or the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

I give this novel 4.5 stars out of 5. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, even the parts that disgusted me to my core. If you don\u2019t mind bloody carnage, graphic murder, and religious extremism, then I highly recommend <\/span>The Devil All the Time<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Major trigger warnings: body horror, gore, religious extremism, sacrifices, suicide, murder.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Brief mentions of: grooming\/pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia, implied rape.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good people rarely have happy endings. The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock is a deliciously repulsive collection of stories that showcases what truly desperate people do at their lowest point. Pollock\u2019s historical thriller is constructed in seven separate parts, each with its own characters and decade, all taking place in rural Ohio. … Continue reading Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4995,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[54,36,52,11],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-southern-crime","category-spring-24","tag-donald-ray-pollock","tag-gothic-horror","tag-grit-lit","tag-thriller"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2426\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-2024-04-25-at-10.45.55\u202fAM-e1714056569635.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4995"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/ugareadscrime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}