The Heavenly Table

Books | Fiction / Literary

4.3

(65)

Donald Ray Pollock

From Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors. It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama. Dispossessed farmer Pearl Jewett ekes out a hardscrabble existence with his three young sons: Cane (the eldest; handsome; intelligent); Cob (short; heavy set; a bit slow); and Chimney (the youngest; thin; ill-tempered). Several hundred miles away in southern Ohio, a farmer by the name of Ellsworth Fiddler lives with his son, Eddie, and his wife, Eula. After Ellsworth is swindled out of his family's entire fortune, his life is put on a surprising, unforgettable, and violent trajectory that will directly lead him to cross paths with the Jewetts. No good can come of it. Or can it?In the gothic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy with a healthy dose of cinematic violence reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, the Jewetts and the Fiddlers will find their lives colliding in increasingly dark and horrific ways, placing Donald Ray Pollock firmly in the company of the genre's literary masters.

Historical Fiction

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More Details:

Author

Donald Ray Pollock

Pages

384

Publisher

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Published Date

2016-07-12

ISBN

0385541309 9780385541305

Community ReviewsSee all

"The Heavenly Table was not what I was expecting at all. I actually put this book down 3 different times only to pick it back up and finish. The plot is that captivating. The plot unfolding, however missed the mark slightly for me. A lot of “filler” in my opinion. There are a ton of characters in this story that in my opinion aren’t necessary. There is a lot of character background and thought dialogue that, again in my opinion, only took away from the story. The Heavenly Table is explicitly graphic and not where you would want it. The graphic violence is rare and only described as an afterwards narrative or in a quick moment while, human bodily functions, sex, and homosexuality is drug out. Hence my reaction to put the book down. What kept me going was the curiosity of what the MAIN characters outcomes would be. While it very much had a dark grittyness to it, it wasn’t used where or how I would have liked it. It’s very “Wild West vibe” but the atmosphere while very western seemed set apart from the more modern filler characters. The ending was a frustrating open ending for such a filled up book. All these pages of unnecessary thoughts, characters, and character backgrounds and it ends the way the whole book should have been written. This style of ending worked beautifully for No Country For Old Men, but missed the mark here. This was an HBO cowboy novel. But not quite in a good way. Still a 3 star because of such a cool plot and interesting main characters with just enough western violence to keep me turning the pages, but with all the graphic filler nonsense, I falls short of a top shelf read.<br/><br/>"