The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock

Book Review by Alan Bett | 06 Aug 2016
Book title: The Heavenly Table
Author: Donald Ray Pollock

The revisionist treatment of the American West has gathered pace over decades, with John Wayne’s pristine duds and decency decomposing into Deadwood's carcass. In The Heavenly Table, cult novelist Donald Ray Pollock cheerfully defiles what's left. His story, set around three ne’er-do-well brothers and a crime spree fuelled by fanaticised outlaw myths, is populated by every possible grotesque.

The filth and depravity is in fact exaggerated to such a degree that the novel demands a strong stomach. Yet those with the required levels of endurance will be rewarded by 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. What spurts forth isn’t pretty: racism, misogyny, inequality and horrific violence. As a fitting reflection of our troubled and rotten times, the most dicriminatory treatments are reserved for the sole black central character, his injustices piled high and regular.

This is a provocatively un-PC and highly cynical work – the only characters untarnished by intolerance are those Pollock suggests are without the mental capacity to question moral codes. Most troublingly, the narrative voice maintains a refusal to judge – that ball remains firmly in the reader’s court – or offer irony to soften its more extreme elements. 

Out now, published by Harvill Secker, RRP £12.99