Donald Ray Pollock’s 2008 short story cycle, Knockemstiff, is a regionalist work of grotesque Grit Lit featuring characters from a small, rural holler community in southern Ohio. This work examines the form, narratives, and characters through close reading, illuminating the layers of different liminalities present in the cycle. These liminalities include narrative liminality of the form of the short story cycle, the social and economic liminal spaces inhabited by the characters, and the ways that the text comments on the liminal nature of storytelling itself. This thesis will argue that the geography of the cycle’s setting coupled with the subject matter and contained by the form create irreconcilable, almost inescapable liminality and that Pollock’s use of the grotesque in these stories represents and reflects that irreconcilability.
","abstract_html":"<p>Donald Ray Pollock’s 2008 short story cycle, Knockemstiff, is a regionalist work of grotesque Grit Lit featuring characters from a small, rural holler community in southern Ohio. This work examines the form, narratives, and characters through close reading, illuminating the layers of different liminalities present in the cycle. These liminalities include narrative liminality of the form of the short story cycle, the social and economic liminal spaces inhabited by the characters, and the ways that the text comments on the liminal nature of storytelling itself. This thesis will argue that the geography of the cycle’s setting coupled with the subject matter and contained by the form create irreconcilable, almost inescapable liminality and that Pollock’s use of the grotesque in these stories represents and reflects that irreconcilability.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ranniger, Celia A"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts - English","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Dr. Michael Martin","Dr. Steve Marsden","Dr. Bridget Adams"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-08-07T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2025-08-07T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T04:30:49Z","subjects":["pollock","knockemstiff","short story cycle","liminality","regionalism","American Studies"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/639","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Dr. Michael Martin","Dr. Steve Marsden","Dr. Bridget Adams"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ranniger, Celia A"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2025-07-22T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts - English"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["pollock","knockemstiff","short story cycle","liminality","regionalism","American Studies"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/639"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Donald Ray Pollock’s 2008 short story cycle, Knockemstiff, is a regionalist work of grotesque Grit Lit featuring characters from a small, rural holler community in southern Ohio. This work examines the form, narratives, and characters through close reading, illuminating the layers of different liminalities present in the cycle. These liminalities include narrative liminality of the form of the short story cycle, the social and economic liminal spaces inhabited by the characters, and the ways that the text comments on the liminal nature of storytelling itself. This thesis will argue that the geography of the cycle’s setting coupled with the subject matter and contained by the form create irreconcilable, almost inescapable liminality and that Pollock’s use of the grotesque in these stories represents and reflects that irreconcilability.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["\"Driving Circles Around the Holler:\" Liminality and the Grotesque in Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Dr. Michael Martin","Dr. Steve Marsden","Dr. Bridget Adams"],"dc:creator":["Ranniger, Celia A"],"dc:date.available":["2025-07-22T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Donald Ray Pollock’s 2008 short story cycle, Knockemstiff, is a regionalist work of grotesque Grit Lit featuring characters from a small, rural holler community in southern Ohio. This work examines the form, narratives, and characters through close reading, illuminating the layers of different liminalities present in the cycle. These liminalities include narrative liminality of the form of the short story cycle, the social and economic liminal spaces inhabited by the characters, and the ways that the text comments on the liminal nature of storytelling itself. This thesis will argue that the geography of the cycle’s setting coupled with the subject matter and contained by the form create irreconcilable, almost inescapable liminality and that Pollock’s use of the grotesque in these stories represents and reflects that irreconcilability.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/639"],"dc:subject":["pollock","knockemstiff","short story cycle","liminality","regionalism","American Studies"],"dc:title":["\"Driving Circles Around the Holler:\" Liminality and the Grotesque in Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts - English"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T04:30:49Z"}