This 2011 copyright is Pollack's 2nd. The followup to the acclaimed Knockemstiff recently reviewed here. Welcome to the sad, cruel world of southern Ohio and West Virginia circa 1945-1965 where Pollack weaves 3 separate stories into a cohesive statement of despair and the search for redemption desired by desperate people. Story 1: Mid 1940's. Willard Russell returns from WWII in the south Pacific where he was witness to horrors no one should ever have to remember. No wonder he questions the existence of a God having seen what he's seen. But he is one of the many who came home, rolled up his sleeves, and started back to work and raise a family. He and his wife Charlotte are raising Arvin near Knockemstiff, Ohio in a rundown house off a 2 wheel dirt track just inside the tree line. But his wife takes ill and Willard comes back to religion, praying twice daily with Arvin and offering animal sacrifices at his prayer log up in the woods. When one of 2 drunk hunters comments on how he'd like to tap Willard's wife, Arvin is stunned that his dad doesn't come to her defense. But he does in his own time, beating the guy so severely that he is left to sit on a store's porch with a tomato coup can strung around his neck to catch his drool. Arvin never forgets. No amount of praying can save Charlotte from the cancer. Willard sends Arvin off to live with his wife's parents (Emma and Earskell) in Coal Creek, West Virginia and goes off to the prayer log to keep his wife's memory alive. His parents also have the orphaned pre-teen Helen living with them since her parents died in a fire.
Story 2: Advance now by about 10 years. Roy is a backwoods preacher from Topperville while his crippled cousin Theodore plays the guitar in the background. They do tent services and guest shots at the rural churches in West Virginia where Roy shows his faith by handling spiders. All things considered, they are doing OK. When they do a service in Coal Creek, Roy takes a shine to Helen (story #1) marries her and they bring Lenora into the world. Problem is that Roy has grown closer to Helen's charms (wink, wink) and begins to lose his preaching touch. Roy then feels the Lord is telling him he has the gift of resurrection and wants to try it out on some animals. Theodore convinces him that won't get them a radio deal, that only raising a human will sell. When Roy's first and only attempt fails, Roy and Theodore run off to the carnival sideshow life in the southeast leaving Lenora to live with the only parents his wife Helen ever knew, Emma and Earskill, who now have Arvin and Lenora to raise.
Story 3. Carl and Sandy Henderson are really something. He is a fat prick. With his camera and wife in tow, they pick up 'models' hitchhiking on the backroads of the midwest and plains states (but not Ohio. One of Carl's rules: don't shit in your own bed). They toy with their marks, getting them all hot and bothered over Sandy eventually turning off on some side road, laying out a blanket for their 'model' and Sandy to get it on only to have Carl put a .38 slug in their head, and then take pictures of Sandy and the corpse. In between trips, they mostly squat in a shack near Meade in southern Ohio while Sandy waits tables and turns tricks for extra money. They've been at this for 4 years, heading out each summer for a 2-3 week 'vacation'. And did I mention that Sandy is the sister of the sheriff of the county where they live? Her bro' Lee, as crooked as they come, is certain her hooking is going to eventually kill any chance at reelection.
Pollack collects the seemingly disparate stories together another 10 years later in the middle 1960's. Coal Creek's new preacher has the taste for teenage girls, impregnating Lenora who flips out, leaving Arvin to exact some measure of justice for Lenora. Theodore dies in the woods of Florida setting Roy off on a journey of redemption back to Coal Creek to see the daughter, Lenora, he gave up years ago. And Carl and Sandy decide to 'vacation' in the southeast instead of the midwest. Roy is hitchhiking in Tennessee when he gets picked up by Carl and Sandy. Arvin has to leave Coal Creek after the incident with the preacher and is headed for where his parents met and he was born. En route, his car falls apart and, you guessed it, has to hitchhike where, you guessed it again, Carl and Sandy pick him up. The resulting carnage brings Sandy's cop brother into play.
Whew. I'm not quite sure what to call this. Pollack pulls no punches in giving the reader an unsympathetic portrayal of the pathetic lives of the characters that populate his work. I don't think Pollack's goal is to get the reader to either identify with or become sympathetic to his characters (OK, maybe Arvin). This is fierce and unrelenting storytelling that drew me into his world with none of the cliff-hanger tricks in each chapter so common in mass market fiction these days. Other reviews say Pollack is an important new voice in American literature. I'm not quite sure what he is saying, but that won't stop the reader from paying attention. Serious stuff here, boys and girls. I wonder how long it will be before his 3rd.
East Coast Don
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