{"id":6759,"date":"2013-12-10T10:53:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T18:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bullmensfiction.com\/?p=6759"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:16:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T17:16:15","slug":"the-bull-interview-donald-ray-pollock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/the-bull-interview\/the-bull-interview-donald-ray-pollock\/","title":{"rendered":"The BULL Interview: Donald Ray Pollock"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an era of ironic detachment and in a time when blue-collar sentiment is worn like the newest fashion, Donald Ray Pollock is the genuine article. He\u2019s quiet, unassuming, even humble. Letting his work speak for itself, his first book, Knockemstiff<\/a>, is already considered by some to be a part of the American Short Story canon. The Devil All The Time<\/a>, his first novel, was hailed as the return of Gritty Realism. Here’s some choice excerpts from the BULL #2<\/a> interview with the best writer to ever come out of Knockemstiff, Ohio.

<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

On going from factory work to writing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“If I can do it, damn near anybody can. It wasn\u2019t a matter of being smart or blessed with talent\u2014if it was, I would have been fucked from the get-go\u2014but it\u2019s been more a matter of having the discipline to keep at it, no matter how many rejections I got…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On first finding his voice:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I\u2019d mostly been trying to mimic other writers, writing about wealthy suburbanites and lapsed Catholics and East Coast intellectuals and on and on, people I really knew nothing about, then I wrote this story about two huffers sitting in a donut shop in southern Ohio…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the grim depiction of his hometown, Knockemstiff:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I\u2019d probably paint the friggin\u2019 Magic Kingdom in the same way, just because of who I am. I\u2019ve always viewed the world as a sad and often tragic place, and that tends to come out in my work…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the role of violence in his work:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Consider this: if there are two stories on the front page of the newspaper, one about a serial killer and the other about a boy scout who donates his piggy bank to a local homeless shelter, which one are you going to read first? I might be wrong, but I believe the majority of people will read about the killer…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On his process:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Once I have an idea for a story, I usually try to put down as much slop as possible as fast as I can until I have something down on paper to start shaping…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On academia:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The hardest thing to adjust to was going from punching the clock in a factory to being a student in a MFA program and teaching freshman comp…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

GET IT ALL, HERE<\/a>.<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Choice cuts from our cover feature in BULL #2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bull-interview","writer-jared-yates-sexton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17546,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759\/revisions\/17546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}