JANUARY 2012

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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