Just numbers on a calendar, made meaningless in their inconsistent and unequal application to the land and its people who, variously, appear to be living in 1817, 1717 and, in some cases, the Dark Ages. About America in 1917, which isn't terribly specific within the bounds of the novel because '1917' itself is almost a fiction. They exert a gravitational weight on each other, bending orbits to slight or significant degrees.īut mostly, it's a book about time. It's a book about people - a hundred of them, all drunk, terrible, stupid, murderous, horny, confused and afraid, often all at the same time. It's a book about Ellsworth and Eula Fiddler and their drunk son Eddie who disappears one night, maybe to join the army, to fight the Huns in a country that none of them can find on a map. It's a book about the Jewett brothers, Cane (the smart one), Cob (the ox) and Chimney (the crazy one), who own two books, a Bible and a dime-store pulp, swollen and falling to pieces, called The Life And Times Of Bloody Bill Bucket, which they use as their guiding light into a life of crime. How?ĭonald Ray Pollock's newest novel, The Heavenly Table, is a book about time. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Heavenly Table Author Donald Ray Pollock

The heavenly table