January
2012.....9 books this month
James Ellroy
– Killer On The Road
Dave
Zeltserman – Julian Katz
John
Warburton/Shaun Ryder – Hallelujah
Michael
Connelly – Nine Dragons
George
Pelecanos – The Way Home
Martin Amis
– The Second Plane
William Boyd
– Fascination
Graham
Greene – Dr. Fischer Of Geneva
Donald Ray
Pollock – Knockemstiff
Nothing
stand out, Pelecanos fairly good, not his best though. Connelly – a bit of an
improvement on the last couple of his I’ve read but not his best.
Amis’s
Second Plane was interesting enough; essays and articles on post-911 world.
Boyd – I
struggled with some of the short stories, just wasn’t interested in them.
Graham
Greene was enjoyable.
Short
stories from Pollock – the pick of the month – Knockemstiff
Blurb... Knockemstiff is a pitch-dark and often hilarious collection of stories set in the tiny Appalachian town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, a community so deprived and diminished it no longer appears on any map.
The youth of Knockemstiff grow up in the malignant
shadow of their parents; raised on abuse, alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, they
are stunted in every possible way: emotionally, mentally, sometimes physically.
They talk a lot about escape but they never so much as cross the county line.
The stories in Knockemstiff are simple and
compact, blunt and brutal, but are also infused with a deep sympathy for the
incapacitating loneliness of poverty, neglect and severely limited horizons.
Knockemstiff is a human,
very funny and unforgettable debut from a stunning new voice in American
fiction.
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