Donald Ray Pollock — American Writer

Donald Ray Pollock is an American writer. Born in 1954 and raised in Knockemstiff, Ohio, Pollock has lived his entire adult life in Chillicothe, Ohio, where he worked at the Mead Paper Mill as a laborer and truck driver until age 50, when he enrolled in the English program at Ohio State University. While there, Doubleday published his debut short story collection, Knockemstiff, and the New York Times regularly posted his election dispatches from southern Ohio throughout the 2008 campaign. The Devil All the Time, his first novel, was published in 2011. His work has appeared in various literary journals, including Epoch, Sou'wester, Granta, Third Coast, River Styx, The Journal, Boulevard, Tin House, and PEN America. His next book, a novel called The Heavenly Table, will be published by Doubleday in July, 2016... (wikipedia)

'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.
Don't get me wrong: I think that everyone should put forth an effort to do better, but let's face it, some of us are just plain luckier than others.
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.
When I turned fifty, I decided to quit the mill and go to graduate school.
Four hundred or so people lived in Knockemstiff in 1957, nearly all of them connected by blood through one godforsaken calamity or another, be it lust or necessity or just plain ignorance.