Staff Pick
The Devil All the Time is a dark, gritty, heartbreaking story set in the South after WWII. Arvin Russell watches helplessly as his mother dies and his father goes slowly insane trying in vain to save her. Carl and Sandy Henderson are a married pair of serial killers combing the countryside for hitchhikers who later beg for mercy but receive none. Sheriff Lee Bodecker is the designated lawman, but he makes his own rules, which never match the law he's promised to uphold. A pair of pseudo-preachers, Roy and Theodore, are running from a crime they are almost too confused to understand. The new preacher, Preston Teagardin, has an uncontrollable appetite for young girls and no qualms about satisfying that urge, despite the fact that his bride is 16.
Pollock's characters seem absolutely real and convincingly tell their stories as the book builds to a dramatic and explosive ending. Violent, harrowing, deeply disturbing, and horrific, Pollock's story is difficult to read but amazingly well written and exceedingly worth the effort — it is truly fantastic. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
In the backwoods of Ohio, Willard Russell's wife is succumbing to cancer, no matter how much he drinks, prays, or sacrifices animals at his "prayer log." Meanwhile, his son Arvin is growing up, from a kid bullied at school into a man who knows when to take action. Around them swirl a nefarious cast of characters — a demented team of serial killers, a spider-eating preacher, and a corrupt local sheriff — all braided into a riveting narrative of the grittiest American grain.
Review
"Features a bleak and often nightmarish vision of the decades following World War II, a world where redemption, on the rare occasions when it does come to town, rides shotgun with soul-scarring consequences." The Onion, A.V. Club
Review
"A smorgasbord of grotesque characters trapped in a pressure-cooker plot. . . . Brutal fun." Esquire
Review
"You may be repelled, you may be shocked, you will almost certainly be horrified, but you will read every last word." The Washington Post
Review
"A systematic cataloguing of the horror and hypocrisy that festers in the dark shadow of the American dream." The Portland Mercury
Review
"Brutally creative. . . . Pollock knows how to dunk readers into a scene and when to pull them out gasping." The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
DONALD RAY POLLOCK is the author of the novel The Devil All the Time and the story collection Knockemstiff, recipient of the 2009 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fellowship. He worked as a laborer at the Mead Paper Mill in Chillicothe, Ohio, from 1973 to 2005. He holds an MFA from Ohio State University.