Donald Ray Pollock, recipient of the 2009 PEN/Bingham Fellowship, made his literary debut in 2008 with the critically acclaimed short-story collection Knockemstiff, which was followed by the novel, The Devil All the Time. He worked as a labourer at the Mead Paper Mill in Chillicothe, Ohio, from 1973 to 2005. www.donaldraypollock.com

To get an idea of Donald Ray Pollock's astonishing new book, one could try to imagine a drunken punch-up between a redneck Hemingway and an amphetamine-fuelled Raymond Carver... A fiendishly enjoyable collection

Donald Ray Pollock, recipient of the 2009 PEN/Bingham Fellowship, made his literary debut in 2008 with the critically acclaimed short-story collection Knockemstiff, which was followed by the novel, The Devil All the Time. He worked as a labourer at the Mead Paper Mill in Chillicothe, Ohio, from 1973 to 2005. www.donaldraypollock.com

To get an idea of Donald Ray Pollock's astonishing new book, one could try to imagine a drunken punch-up between a redneck Hemingway and an amphetamine-fuelled Raymond Carver... A fiendishly enjoyable collection