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The Devil All the Time

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The Devil All the Time

By: Donald Ray Pollock
Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
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About this listen

A Netflix feature film starring Tom Holland and Bill Skarsgård.

Willard is a tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific who can't save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from a slow death by cancer no matter how much sacrificial blood he pours on his 'prayer log'.

Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial killers, trawl America's highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate.

The spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick are running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin, Willard and Charlotte's orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.

A dark and riveting vision of America from the award-winning author of Knockemstiff.

©2011 Donald Ray Pollock (P)2011 Random House Genre Fiction Gothic Horror Literary Fiction Fiction Marriage Scary

Critic Reviews

"Donald Ray Pollock redefines the term 'American Gothic' in his debut novel, taking Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner and turning them up to 11.... The Devil All the Time is a very dark slice of Americana." (The Herald)

"An extraordinarily brutal yet tender insight into the lives of his characters. Superb." (The Times)

"Like being dragged backwards through a briar patch by William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor while Nick Cave howls hosannahs at a blood-black moon... Spider-gobbling revivalists, kick-back sheriffs, sideshow freaks, perfidious preachers - all are present and most incorrect....You can taste the metal in the water and the tang of decay in the fetid air." (Time Out)
All stars
Most relevant
A dark yet beautiful glimpse into American. Wonderfully narrated. I deeply enjoyed the dark religious undertones.

Beautifully dark Americana

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Engrossing, though depressing look at the dark side of life. A book full of despicable characters that makes you glad your not one of them. The convincing narration puts you right there in the post war mid west. Curiously addictive.

Dark

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This is a heavy, unsparing book and absolutely not for the faint-hearted — but the writing is exceptional. Pollock’s prose is controlled, precise, and deeply human, with no indulgence or cleverness for its own sake. The structure is disciplined, the characters feel painfully real, and the story grips from start to finish. The subject matter is dark, but it’s handled with integrity and purpose.

The only note of letdown came at the end, when Arvin’s final confrontation played out against the sheriff rather than a more symbolically resonant figure. We do meet the sheriff early on, when Arvin talks to him following Willard’s death, so there is a kind of narrative full circle — but beyond that, he feels underdeveloped, more a peripheral corrupt player than a meaningful culmination of the novel’s themes. That said, Pollock never presents this as a neat or moralised story, and his unapologetically realist lens ultimately makes the choice defensible.

An outstanding piece of storytelling.

More reviews on Goodreads at emilymcmullan

Brilliant but brutal

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Dark, depressing with little retribution... but a fantastic story, with detail that takes you there. I enjoyed every minute of this, will be interesting to see what they can do with the movie...

Depressingly good

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A superbly written story, but not for the faint of heart. I thought the narrator was brilliant.

Dark and beautiful prose, excellent narrator

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