Donald Ray Pollock

The old man had caught Daniel playing Romeo in the smokehouse with Lucy, Daniel’s little sister’s carnival doll. Daniel was giving it to her good, making believe she was Gloria Hamlin, a snotty, bucktoothed cheerleader who’d spit chocolate milk on him last year in the school cafeteria. “Boy, that’s Mary’s doll,” the old man said when he jerked the smokehouse door open. He said it matter-of-factly, like he was just telling his son that the radio was calling for rain, that the price of hogs was down again

Might as well watch niggers as listen to this shit,” the old man yelled at the TV.

“It’s a shame they don’t sell live ones,” the man said, mashing his bloodshot eyeballs with his fist.