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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Knockemstiff is a Real Place

posted by on April 23 at 8:00 AM

BookKnockemstiffFull-160.jpg

This week, I review a debut collection of linked short stories called Knockemstiff by an author named Donald Ray Pollock. It’s a pretty great book, but not for the weak of stomach:

For quite some time, Harry Crews wrote nasty novels—The Gospel Singer, A Feast of Snakes—about Florida and the South. The amoral bodybuilders that tended to be protagonists of his stories did drugs, fornicated, and committed heinous acts of violence like it was their biological imperative. The characters in Knockemstiff could be their Ohioan kissing cousins.

The review was in the print edition of the paper, but there’s also a web-only interview that I did with Pollock about coming from the real Knockemstiff, Ohio, and becoming a writer at the age of 50. He also gives some really useful advice for aspiring writers:

I was 45 when I started writing, or trying to write. I wasn’t really writing; I was trying to figure out what the fuck you’d do when you write. Hemingway was a big influence mainly because when I started I would take a story I really liked, someone else’s, and at that time I was using a typewriter and I would type the story out. I’d usually try and choose a fairly short story. You get so much closer to writing, you can read the story, but you get so much closer to the writing of it when you type out someone else’s words. Plus it trains you to be able to stay in the chair and type, which is the main thing. I mean, you got to stay in the chair. So it was kinda good training for that, typing out Hemingway, John Cheever, Richard Yates.

I also ask him about the frequent appearances of bologna and luncheon meat in his stories. I was a little nervous about meeting him after I read his stories, but he turned out to be a nice, interesting guy, and the interview turned out pretty well despite my involvement. It could be worth your time.

RSS icon Comments

1

Two things:
1) Dan loves anus so much! He loves his own, he loves other mens in bathrooms, he loves Terry's. He has loved thousands of anus's over the course of his lifetime of buggering. Anything that offends the "anui" of the world is like watching the holocaust happen in front of him. To Dan, the persecution of anus's is like watching his best friend get gassed by nazis at aushwitz.
2) I love it when arrogant and ignorant city folk encounter something from the more rural part of this country. Not that any of you have actually shot a deer. No. Yet you go the extra step and conclude that someone who does is a serial killer. BRILLIANT!!! You guys sure do know a lot about life! I mean, between preening yourselves for a trip down to the glory hole, laughing at homeless people and finding new and exciting ways to make your hair look like shit, how do you have the time to chortle at the backwards ways of the common folk?
I take solace in the fact that city will turn into virtual slaughterhouses and you assholes will become cannibals when the impending collapse happens. That is, until you die from some ungodly illness picked up because you have no idea why it's important to core out your prey's asshole.

Posted by ecce homo | April 23, 2008 9:09 AM
2

"I mean you got to stay in the chair." This advice seems so simple and yet it is one of the hardest things for a writer. I would amend it, in this glorious technical age to "You've got to stay in the chair and off the Internet."

My favorite Hemingway quotation about writing:

"I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day."

My favorite random Hemingway quotation:

"Road to Hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs."

Posted by PopTart | April 23, 2008 11:04 AM

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