Rural Transgressive Writing

This week, I read Knockemstiff, a book of short story fiction about a real town of approximately 200 people in Ohio by Donald Ray Pollock. On Tuesday, I went to Skylight Books in LA to see a panel discussion for a noir anthology, Eight Very Bad Nights. Afterwards, as one should do, we gathered at House of Pies for food and chitchat.

Donald Ray Pollack. Photographer unknown. Swiped from an internet source who did not give credit. It’s been used many times so I’m going to assume that it was media tour photos from one of his books.

Here’s what writers’ conversations are like:

• What are you working on?

• Did you see this thing? [Movie, TV, or other nonbook media]

• Did you hear about ____? [Author who made a ton of money, got screwed over, or has a horrible diagnosis]

• [Optional, but always encouraged] I read your thing, and here’s how much I liked it.

• [If time allows, a question about personal life]

At the other end of a three pushed-together tables sat the writer James DF Hannah, who came in from Kentucky for the event. We couldn’t talk over pie, since there was no way to hear over the clanking of forks on plates and the social rock tumbler of background conversations (one of those diners with people talking at every table ). Afterwards, as we were splitting ways, I took time to talk to him out on the sidewalk.

We took turns asking each other if we had read certain Appalachian books, when he stumped me with “have you read Knockemstiff?” followed by “It’s a tough book.” Which is writer code for “trigger warning.” Coming from a crime writer, I knew this must be something, and went on my Libby app immediately. “Tough” is an understatement.

Knockemstiff is a brutal book. Trigger warnings for everything possible: incest, murder, rape, violent racism, and more. Each story is from a different POV, until the very last story which picks up a family from the first story to bookend the collection. There’s not a lot of people in this small town, and I guess every one of them has some horrible dark secret or criminal practice.

I stand behind the work as a piece of art, and I’m glad I read it, but this is not a “you should read this book”; feel free to skip this all together. It’s definitely not for everyone. It’s only for a thin sliver. It’s definitely transgressive literature—writing that pushes the boundaries of social taboo and challenges the reader's experience of consuming the work. If you’re not familiar with transgressive art, please pause here, go read about that, then come back and finish this post.

I haven’t talked much about the novel I’m working on. It’s about the 26 months I don’t talk about. As a teen, I was in a cult I don’t name in public. Bad things happened. This past December, a class-action lawsuit was filed regarding instances of the sexual assault, abuse, and rape of minors that happened. I can’t participate because I remember very little of my time there and I don’t remember the names of others, although I have checked to see if my time and location overlaps with anyone who needs corroboration. But I am faced with a personal question: “Am I going to write about this ever, or not?” And for sure I can’t write about this time without acknowledging this atmosphere.

This is probably why, when I found the world of transgressive literature, music, and cinema, that I was immediately fascinated with it: the artists discuss what is not normally spoken in society. I was 18 when I found films like The River’s Edge and A Clockwork Orange, and heard punk and experimental records. At 19, I read Bukowski’s Ham on Rye, his own memoir/fiction of his violent physical child abuse and for the first time, I found out people write about these things. They talk about it in books. Not long after that, I saw Diamanda Galas’ Plague Mass performance live, I carried the mass market Naked Lunch everywhere, and although I never “got” Kathy Acker’s writing, I read every interview I found with her.

But these people always seemed to be from New York City or Berlin, had been to colleges I couldn’t afford and listed influences of writers I hadn’t heard of, and had been part of other art scenes that were long over. Beat Poets, the Factory, Black Arts Movement, and performance art and punk eras that had passed. I was a kid from Arkansas, battered in a cult and fried to a crisp in the oil of Boston’s crack years, then returned to Arkansas like Nothing Ever Happened. There was weird shit all around me that I didn’t know how to express.

And then I read Harry Crews’ Feast of Snakes. This lead me into a weird mineshaft of transgressive literature set in rural settings. I began writing my own fiction, and was quickly asked by the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University not to write fiction like this. No one asked me if it was real. And because I was 20, and thought they knew better, I stopped writing transgressive fiction. For them. But I avoided the cult stories until this past year.

But if I’ve piqued your interest, here’s a list of writing for you to check out.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find”—Flannery O’Connor

This 1953 short story is at the root of every weird rural writer. It’s the titular story in its collection, but if you’re buying a collection, just grow up and get the complete stories collection. Worth every penny. A serial killer story written 60 years before podcasters thought serial killers were cool.

Child of God—Cormac McCarthy

In his later career, McCarthy submitted his novel synopses manuscripts (The Road, No Country for Old Men) just finished enough to sell to Hollywood. But before that, he wrote the nightmarish Blood Meridian which makes him an all-timer. However, he started with a book about a necrophiliac murderer: Child of God.

Feast of Snakes—Harry Crews

Oh, Harry Crews! A weirdo worth of the cult status he has. This book is his literary peak, in my opinion. After this, he bottomed out for many years, and returned to writing with All We Need of Hell but never regained the crazy mental circus of his early work. The book revolves around a rattlesnake hunt/cookout in South Georgia.

Dirty Work—Larry Brown

There’s a guy with no arms and no legs trying to convince a violent man to kill him. That’s the book. 200 plus pages of VA hospital gaslighting. Brown’s other work is probably better written, but this is the most shocking.

Kentucky Straight—Chris Offutt

Contains the best short story ever written about a bear eating a baby’s head.