The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All the Time is my second read from PW’s Best Books of 2011, and it couldn’t be more fitting choice following After the Apocalypse. If McHugh offered us a stark look at human life after tragedy, Pollock focuses instead on the tragedies we inflict on each other.
Pollock’s novel circles a cast of haunting rural characters: a WWII veteran convinced pouring sacrificial blood over his “prayer log” will save his dying wife; a husband and wife team of serial killers who photograph and exterminate their models; and an revival preacher and his wheelchair-bound cousin who join a circus to run from the law. What beings as a southern grotesque rollick worthy of Flannery O’Connor or Barry Hannah quickly descends into a story of pure human brutality. In Pollock’s world, violence, sex, alcohol, and sin—little else—connects characters.
At points, The Devil All The Time threatens to succumb to a brutal anarchy equal to the often-meaningless violence of a Palahniuk novel. Pollock’s central character Arvin Russell, a violent man in his own right, saves the story from this chaos. It falls to Arvin to restore order to a disordered world. When he takes responsibility for his actions and the actions of others, he restores not just faith in the story, but also faith in human nature. Woven together with tight, striking prose, Pollock’s gritty and uncompromising novel will leave you reeling.
