The Heavenly Table

Cane, Cob and Chimney Jewett are young Georgia sharecroppers held under the thumb of their domineering, God-struck father Pearl. When he dies unexpectedly, they set out on horseback to rob and loot their way to wealth and infamy, inspired by a lurid dime novel that only one of them can read.

But little goes as planned and soon they're pursued by both the authorities and by stories that make them out to be the most fearsome trio of bank robbers and murderers around. The truth, though, is far more complex than the legend. And the heaven they've imagined may in fact be worse than the hell they sought to escape.

The Heavenly Table is gritty, electrifying and weirdly funny. It cements Donald Ray Pollock's place among America's best contemporary novelists.

About the Author :
After quitting school at seventeen, Donald Ray Pollock worked at Mead Paper Mill and as a truck driver in Chillicothe, Ohio. After thirty-two years employed as a labourer he enrolled at Ohio State University to study creative writing.

He is the author of two acclaimed books, the cult-classic short-story collection Knockemstiff, which went on to win the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship, and the novel The Devil All The Time.

www.donaldraypollock.net

Review :
"The Heavenly Table is brilliant and unforgettable. In his trademark blend of humor and pathos, Donald Ray Pollock gives us a view into life's dark corners, without ever forgetting there is a lighter side as well" "Dark, violent and funny, this book will be like nothing else you've ever read" "There is something of the Coen Brothers in The Heavenly Table. This too is southern gothic… with a cast of grotesques, eccentric plot twists and humour of the blackest pitch… Pollock writes like an angel – an angel that has escaped from Knockemstiff lunatic asylum." "A tale of weird and darkly funny invention." "A blood-laced tale of three brothers who rob and kill their way across the US. [The Heavenly Table] will be a book you won’t be able to stop recommending once you’ve finished… A bit like reading Hunter S Thompson crossed with Cormac McCarthy – and a sprinkling of Nick Cave chucked in for brutal measure. It’s the kind of book you just know the Coen Brothers are itching to adapt, with its vast array of quirky characters and black humour" "Donald Ray Pollock’s brilliant Western is an earthy, raunchy read – Dickensian in its rogue’s gallery of oddball characters. Full of black humour, it’s superbly constructed and written with true grit. By the end, one is left longing for more and panting for the movie that will surely come" "Wild, rollicking, and wonderfully vulgar… A riotous satire that takes on our hopeless faith in modernity, along with our endless capacity for cruelty and absurd pretension." "Truly fabulous… A very wry comedy… When reviewing, I usually mark down pages with particularly well-honed phrases: I stopped doing so when reading The Heavenly Table as I probably would have bookmarked every page…Witty and expansive… I am tempted to say that anyone wanting to understand contemporary America’s political direction might be well advised to start with this novel." "A fine (and often very funny) multi-stranded yarn, set at the dawn of US involvement in WW1 with the nation on the cusp of modernity. As Tarantino's The Hateful Eight dared onscreen, The Heavenly Table lances the boil of modern America on the page." "Pollock’s freewheeling, blood-spilling story is well matched by his prose." "The darkest of Southern Noir… You’ll need a strong stomach and may want a hot shower afterward, but you’ll never forget Pollock’s compelling characters."