Winter's Bone

Here’s another book better known for the excellent film adaption, but the novel actually brings the gritty, sometimes brutal daily life in the rural Ozarks alive in the mind’s eye more vividly than a movie ever could.

Daniel Woodrell’s atmospheric story of a teen daughter’s quest to bring her father back for his court date, dead or alive, is a simple narrative rendered with stark, almost Biblical prose. I particularly appreciated the author’s distinctive language and evocative imagery.

This is one of the few thrillers that brought tears to my eyes.

Ree, a teenage girl, must save her family by negotiating with the violent inhabitants of the Ozarks. Ree’s father has disappeared from his trial and, if she doesn’t find him, the family will lose everything they own because he pledged it as collateral for his bail bond.

I love how Woodrell portrayed her loyalty and fierceness, as well as how he wrote the deeply flawed characters who love her. His descriptions and metaphorical uses of winter and the landscape are breathtaking.

The book is literary but also… show more.

Having grown up in the rural Ozark Mountains, I saw firsthand both the best of its people and the worst of the fragile edges of its society.

Winter’s Bone is a book that unapologetically tells a story of how these two aspects are not exclusive of each other. From the protective and driven daughter of a poor hill family to the destructive and brutal reality that the intrusion of drugs has brought to rural America, Woodrell’s complex work explores loyalty and contradiction while emphasizing the gray area that often exists in community morals.

It’s a book that will pull you… show more.

Woodrell’s novel tells the story of Ree Dolly, a sixteen-year-old girl in the Ozarks who in the middle of winter suddenly faces a week’s deadline to find her missing father, Jessup, a meth cooker, before a scheduled court date.

(With the book’s Ozarks setting, it’s hard not to see Ree as a distant, fiercer, more profane descendant of Mattie Ross.)

Unbeknownst to the family, Jessup put up their house as part of his bond. If Ree can’t find her father in time, her family—including her helpless mother and two young brothers—will lose everything and become homeless.

Woodrell uses sparse, lyrical… show more.

For a taste of modern-day Southern Gothic, read this.

Set in the Ozarks, 17-year-old protagonist, Ree Dolly, takes up the mantle of caretaker and survival overseer for her family after her father disappears. Epic in its mix of family secrets, general despair, and societal ignorance, Winter’s Bone serves up humanity at its worst: the underbelly of the meth world in the forgotten parts of our country. And yet, the will to survive is strong in Ree. 

I can tell you from experience, this backwoods life still exists in places today.

Made into the film that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career (with a stunning performance by John Hawkes as Teardrop), the read is truly an exhilaration. After her father puts up their house for bond and disappears, Ree Dolly has set out to track him down dead or alive. The book’s razor focus on a beautifully clean line of tension, paired with Woodrell’s signature prose that is at once raw and lyrical, visceral and philosophical, make the book un-put-downable; from its violent beginnings to its super nova ending, we feel every second of Ree’s considerable wounds and triumphs as she goes against… show more.

One might think a crime novel employing meth labs, pervasive poverty, and arcane backroad rules might succumb to cliché. However, Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone does anything but. His mesmerizing descriptions of the Ozark landscape and its people took my breath away. Although I deeply appreciate fiction that leaves me with little hope the way crime noir often does (a la Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men), I don’t usually rate these types of books as my top reads. Shallow or not, I like to be left with a sliver of hope. Winter’s Bone though is equal parts poetically luminescent… show more.

This short, beautifully written novel features a sixteen-year-old girl who goes off into the Ozark wilderness to find her father. The obstacles she faces are unique and compelling, and the stakes are high despite the “quiet” nature of this story. The main character, Ree, is a strong young woman who comes of age in the most trying of circumstances, but she does it with grace and maturity. 

Winter’s Bone is the best back country crime fiction of this century and one of the best of all time. People know Woodrell mostly through the film versions of his novels, for example, the movie based on this novel, starring Jennifer Lawrence. Winter’s Bone shows not just mastery of the form but freshness and realism of place, language, and behavior. Few books capture the Ozark region, as well as this one, does. At the heart of it is a paradox: While the story is utterly dark in tone—noirest of the noir—the depiction of what the sixteen-year-old female protagonist must live… show more.

I am impressed how this story reminds us of the everyday heroes all around us, ordinary people struggling to survive and take care of their families. Their personal battles don’t make the news or end up in history books, but the pluck and determination they exhibit are every bit as inspiring as the mythic heroes of yore.

In this crime novel, a 16-year-old girl must demonstrate courage, wisdom, and maturity beyond her years in order to protect her impoverished family. The girl has assumed responsibility for taking care of her two younger brothers and her mentally disabled mother. Her father,… show more.