'Winter's Bone'

Author:  Daniel Woodrell
Date read:  08/31/17
Published:  07/20/2010
Little, Brown and Company

Winter's Bone depicts rural Missouri (specifically in the Ozarks region) in a way that is not often seen, but is nonetheless very real. Two years ago we went on a fishing trip on The Lake of the Ozarks and stayed in this somewhat rundown little "resort" called Sleepy Bill's in Stover, Missouri. We drove through the backwoods one day to eat at this amazing little restaurant in the middle of nowhere and I was shocked by the little communities we drove past in the middle of the woods that were essentially clusters of trailers and old cabins with rotting porches and rusting old cars parked in the lawns. This is exactly the way I pictured the Dolly clan living in Winter's Bone, which is set in southwestern Missouri. This level of poverty is real-- as is the anti-law sentiment and tight-lipped frontier justice showcased by Woodrell's characters. In Ree Dolly's world, methamphetamine manufacturing is most families' bread and butter and with that comes violence and death. It's a sad reality, but reality all the same.

I loved the way this book was written. Woodrell's mastery of the Ozark vernacular helped draw me into this Ozark mountain setting just as effectively as the descriptive language and sensory details included in the prose. In the author interview included at the back of the book, Woodrell names Cormac McCarthy as being one of the author's from whom he has been inspired and that makes complete and total sense. Read McCarthy's The Road and then read Winter's Bone and you'll see some similarities (stylistically).

Note to self: Read everything by Daniel Woodrell.
Note to everyone else: Read this book AND watch the move. Both are spectacular.

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