Donald Ray Pollock

Enquadrada na zona rural de Ohio e Virgínia Ocidental, a história decorre durante um período desde o final da Segunda Guerra Mundial até meados de 1960.

Pollock pinta um retrato vívido de pequenas cidades e quintas isoladas onde a esperança e a oportunidade são conceitos totalmente estrangeiros.
Estamos dentro do livro e ao nosso redor as personagens são na sua maioria pobres, alguns dos quais com pouca sorte e outros simplesmente maus até aos ossos.

“ɪᴛ’ꜱ ʜᴀʀᴅ ᴛᴏ ʟɪᴠᴇ ᴀ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ʟɪꜰᴇ. ɪᴛ ꜱᴇᴇᴍꜱ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴠɪʟ ᴅᴏɴ’ᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ʟᴇᴛ ᴜᴘ.”

Encontramo-nos então no inferno.

Aqui Willard Russell reza com o seu filho Arvin, debruçados num tronco caído de uma velha árvore. Reza pela sua esposa. Reza diariamente com empenho, como se o resultado disso ditasse a resolução.
Observamos também um pregador comedor de aranhas, que está convencido de que pode trazer de volta os mortos.
Ou um casal que dá boleia a caminhantes, fotografam-nos, e posteriormente...
Um xerife, que reconhece que ser a lei num município desfavorecido tem as suas vantagens.
Como irão cruzar todos os seus caminhos?

“ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴀʟᴍᴏꜱᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴᴇᴅ ꜱᴏ ᴡᴇ'ᴅ ᴍᴇᴇᴛ ᴇᴀᴄʜ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ.”

Algumas das pessoas abraçaram o diabo de bom grado. Alguns tentaram ficar à sua frente, mas foram apanhados no seu ataque sem remorsos. Os seus contos e os seus antecedentes vividamente detalhados, é o que se encontra neste livro.

Há muita ação brutal, mas a história é tão bem contada que Pollock atrai praticamente desde a primeira linha. E embora seja muito difícil simpatizar com muitas das personagens, vira-se a última página com um profundo sentimento de pesar, pelo facto de o livro ter terminado.… (més)

This is rather disturbing book on multiple levels. I have a feeling that without rural US nobody would be able to write horror stories. It needs to be Appalachian "eyes from the forest" type of story because, hey, it is setting - right?

Story on its own is pretty good written, we follow several story-lines that (at first) slowly (then in ever faster pace) converge to rather satisfying conclusion. This is not horror in terms of supernatural but horror caused by human nature. Also book will goes into annals on my end as a book with most terrifyingly vivid depictions of cancer patients.

Book is rather free with some of the elements - incest, sex, sex, blood, blood - and while some of them are understandable (i.e. new preacher and homicidal couple) others are there just for shock and awe effect (i.e. I am still trying to figure out the role of the altar as anything besides scene setup for final showdown). Apparently nobody is doing anything in the farm country than incest, weird religious practices and in general nailing everything that moves (and here it seems they all aim for even younger girls and boys and sex slaves/selling spouses are very common - I think that farmers and miners would have a comment on this but lets leave it as it is). Unrelated to this specific novel, all of this them-incestual-hicks approach while interesting at first becomes very tiring after a while (enough maniacs live in urban areas, you do not need to go outside the cities). In any case this is the central view of rural society in this story; I think that small town horror can be depicted in other ways but OK, I guess sometimes cliche's are required for the shock value.

Author's style is excellent and you will be glued to the pages to the very end. Conversations between and behavior of the characters flow so naturally I could not find any major inconsistency (even events relevant to story progress are very very natural, there is no illogical developments, which one could expect considering story spans decades). Author is truly master when it comes to words and I think that more subtle approach (without shock and awe technique) would suit him more.

All in all very interesting crime noir novel where no-one is spared and you are left wondering what next. I wont go into details because I dont think it can be done without spoiling the novel and that would be true crime. Lets say book "suffers" from what I call "6th sense syndrome" - you will need to have very large time period before re-reading because everything will be very alive in your memory when you read it first time.

Highly recommended and I have to admit I am on a lookout for more works from this author.… (més)