We are introduced to two of our protagonists Willard a returning soldier from World War 2 who had witnessed some unspeakable and barbaric acts whilst serving clearly shell-shocked or suffering from PTSD his life is unraveling one frayed thread at a time. The opening of this book throws us right into the action and what life in this small town is like, and how brutal life here can be. The Devil All The Time is a sprawling, gritty, powerhouse of a book that follows the lives of a handful of characters as they fight to survive in the town of Knockemstiff and the surrounding towns of Ohio and West Virginia. Just when you think he’s used the device for the last time, it comes chugging through again, as understated as a freight train rolling round the bend.‘Some people were born just so they could be buried.’ He also tries to pull off the now-classic trick, favored by David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino, of using seemingly innocent vintage pop songs-Jackie DeShannon’s “Needles and Pins,” Sonny James’ “Young Love”-as a backdrop for grim violence. But Campos-whose credits include the 2016 film Christine, about Florida newscaster Christine Chubbuck, who committed suicide on live television-doesn’t lend any meaning or weight to these events they just give off a lurid, sweaty odor. The movie’s grislier elements include a neck stabbing, a few bloody beatings, and an image of a crucified, mutilated, 98 percent dead soldier. The template is pure Southern Gothic, but without the subtlety of top-drawer practitioners of the genre, like Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.
But mostly, The Devil All the Time is just a pileup of awful people doing terrible things, for no reason other than to prove how wretched humans can be.
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