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Knockemstiff is a collection of short stories set in the holler of the same name in southern Ohio where I grew up. I tried to link the stories together through the place and some recurring characters.

Donald Ray Pollock

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Donald Ray Pollock
Age: 69
Born: 1954
Born: December 23
Novelist
Writer
Knockemstiff
Ohio
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Names
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Stories
Southern
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Tried
Holler
Together
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Recurring
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Ohio
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More quotes by Donald Ray Pollock

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I look upon [writing about religion] as a nice way to get by in this precarious world, though I've never been able to do it myself.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.
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Religion can be a good thing, but basically the way I look at it is that it provides a moral code, common sense. But then people distort it and use it as an excuse to be a bully. It's sad, but that's the way it's worked for a several thousand years now.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I'm always doubting my work, even when people are kind enough to say good things. I still have a hard time believing I've written some books, let alone that they've actually done pretty well.
Donald Ray Pollock
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When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I don't really think the outburst is recent there have always been writers in Appalachia.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].
Donald Ray Pollock
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I think some people at Doubleday worried about that a bit when Knockemstiff came out, but, with the exception of one or two people who complained that I didn't do justice to the many good people who lived in the holler, most of the local objections have been aimed at the violence and foul language.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.
Donald Ray Pollock
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Though there are still many good people out there in the world, it seems that they're vastly outnumbered by the stupid, selfish, violent ones.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I've always liked reading books that contain funny lines or situations, and maybe because my work is known chiefly for its violence and misery, I made a more conscious attempt with The Heavenly Table to do that myself.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I think my characters - well, at least a few of them - are hoping or searching for some kind of contact with god.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I guess music is the one universal art form that most people can be moved by, regardless of where they come from, and for many it might be the closest they get to god, but I think taking a trip out into the country, away from the light pollution, and looking at a clear night sky is what does it best for me.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I remember a class I taught at Ohio State where I assigned a Mary Gaitskill story, which really wasn't that bad, and I had this one girl refuse to read it. But better that reaction than no reaction at all.
Donald Ray Pollock
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One of the reasons I write about religion is due to my own envy of people who truly feel the presence of god in their lives, good souls who believe devoutly in a supreme being and an afterlife.
Donald Ray Pollock
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I was always a big reader, even when everything was bad and miserable.
Donald Ray Pollock
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Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.
Donald Ray Pollock