Customer Reviews

Winter's Bone: A Novel

5 star:		(101)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Woodrell has definitely captured what it is like to live in a subculture that is so isolated from the bigger world around it. The Ozark area is such a paradox of beautiful lodges and resorts and, on the other hand, pockets of isolated, poverty-stricken rural poor. Woodrell's portrayal of the Dolly clan is, unfortunately, not unbelievable.

Ree's search for her father who has skipped his bail reflects a parallel search for a better life; she doesn't know where to look for him and her only idea of a better life for herself is to join the Army. The effects that meth have had on the rural poor is devastating. That together with generations of family hardships, feuds, intermarriage, and poverty paints a pretty depressing picture.

I live in Missouri and have just now discovered Woodrell. He calls his writing "Country Noir" which is truly an apt description. This isn't a pretty book, but it is an honest one and one that I would highly recommend for those looking to meet characters not found in most other writing.

Twenty years ago Jewel Cobb dragged a comb through his greasy, antique pompadour and in that brilliant moment Daniel Woodrell announced his intention to entertain a readership. Predictably Mr. Cobb did not survive that novel, Mr. Woodrell has gone on to publish eight of them and become a leading contender for the title of Most Underappreciated Writer in America (campaigning in the heavyweight division).
It may be that the very voices decrying Woodrell's lack of popular acceptance are at least partly responsible for it. The laudatory reviews, and they are finally numerous, tend toward the use of adjectives like 'dark,' and 'bleak,' and, 'lyrical,' and these suggest literary heavy sledding, reading reminiscent of a high school English assignment. It must be conceded that Woodrell is a serious writer, a purveyor of social outrage and dismay at the human condition, but not a page of his work passes without something to laugh at, cringe from, fret over--in other words the vicarious experience that is the stuff of ENTERTAINMENT.
In 'Winter's Bone' Woodrell continues to make good on his old promise. Though 'Bone' is not as consistently funny as some of his previous books it is a glistening showcase of an ever maturing and deepening compassion. America has no patience for her poor and feels it is in the poorest taste when the underclass is anything but invisible. Classism remains our most pervasive and acceptable prejudice. It is into the teeth of this nasty attitude that Woodrell flings the wonderful, large humanity of his people. Ree Dolly is the latest and most finely drawn of these Woodrellian characters. To read 'Winter's Bone' is to be instructed and ennobled, but really Woodrell means no harm by it. His trick, his art, is to make the hard lesson savory.

Why Daniel Woodrell is not a household name says much about literacy in America. Having read most of his books, I can't help thinking, Why don't more people know him? Why don't bookstores carry his novels? Why doesn't someone turn this book into a movie?
Anyway, Winter Bones is one of his best. It is a novel about a young girl who is on a journey of discovery, a discovery not just about her meth lab cooker dad but about herself. It is a picaresque novel, much like Portis's True Grit. She finds "justice" at a cost, but her determination and heart, to keep her family from homelessness, makes her one of America's most down-on-her-luck, inspirational characters in contemporary lit.
Woodrell fills his novels with great descriptions and dialogue. He creates characters whom you wouldn't want necessarily to meet, but are still intriguing, sympathetic and compelling.
Great book! Great author! Read Winter Bones and all of Woodrell's books. Maybe the word will get out, so that authors like Woodrell will be more well-known and praised like a lot of less-worthy authors.

Daniel Woodrell has a way with words, and if you're a fan of his work it's the language that seduces you. His plots are earthy, celebrate the lives of those whose values are bent by the fires of hard luck. He has the magic of voice in earlier novels, speaking in the first person, giving his characters an innocent honesty combined with intelligence and ignorance in just the right tragic mix.
Winter's bone starts at a slower pace than his other books. Sixteen year old Ree Dolly, of the infamous no-good Dollys, a poor and violent outlaw clan, is the center of the story, and it's told from the third person. At first you wonder if Woodrell can get this thing rolling, but before you know it the vernacular has crept in and the situation and the girl are compelling, you've got to find out what happens. It gets pretty grisly, in a satisfying way. I mean to say it gets rough, more or less true to life rough, though spiffed up for dramatic effect.
There are so many good lines in this book you could genuinely call it a great poem, in the same club with Ted Hughs's "Crow". What makes the language so great is what Woodrell is so good at, mixing the vernacular with high language, with close observation, with humor and surprising but apt connections, with music in the sounds and light and shadow in the images, with affection for all of creation, no matter how low.
Winter's Bone has you shivering in the heavy snow with Ree in her grandma's coat and bare legs, trying to keep the family together, give her little brothers a chance for a better life.
To my mind, this is great art, though I will say I think Woodrell's plots are mainly scaffolds to hang the words and characters on. I am rarely satisfied by his plots, but I don't think the plots are what's important in Woodrell's work. He butts you up against life's essence so close you can smell skin and feel heat.

Daniel Woodrell is one of the more under appreciated talents in the genre. 'Give Us A Kiss: A Country Noir' was one of my favorite books of the late 90's. This book is a stunner; lyrical and earthy, violent and touching. The heroin is a
wonderful, honest portrayal of the American heart and spirit.

The former English major in me recognized that this novel is beautifully written, with an evocative setting in the rural Ozarks. The characters are well-developed, especially the strong female protagonist, 16-year-old Ree, and the protagonist's quest carries the plot along well. However, the "other" me, the woman who doesn't watch the news because it is too disturbing, avoids intense and violent books, and tends to prefer comedy and musical films (can you say escapist?) found this novel very difficult going indeed. It was relentlessly depressing--crank cooker dad who is out of the picture, insane mom, teen left with the care of two younger siblings, beating, rape--it just goes on and on. The last chapter is unbelievably grisly. But if you are a reader who likes gritty realism, look back at all the "English major" reasons why you might choose Winter's Bone.

The gristley and grisly nature of much of this fairly simple story dragged me through despite the occasional knotty bits of phraseology. At 17, Ree Dolly is the heroine in a brutal coming-of-age scenario that centres on the disappearance of her father. The gritty realism of the mountain culture - now as riddled with drugs as it once was with moonshine, is well depicted. Ree's own drug experiences contrast well with the brutal imagery of the storyline as well as the edgey paranoia shown by her Uncle. The descriptions of the effects of painkillers -singly and in combination - did seem repetitive and were perhaps unnecessary in sustaining the reader's empathy. The sub-plot around Ree's best friend Gail's life would be much more familiar territory to many readers but, as with the main story, is presented in a tough and uncompromising light. This book should be required reading for young adults. Indeed I found it really rather like an E.Annie Proulx for young adults and immediately referred it to my own 19 and 20 year old children for reading. Having myself grown up not far from a remote mountain area and recently spent time on the frontier in Pakistan, I thought this book provided a reliable depiction of how life sometimes works in remote rural communities around the world, not just in the Ozarks.

The story of Ree Dolly can be read simply, but there's more to this short novel than the surface plot. The Dollys are descendants of a visionary who saw the Lord's plan in the entrails of a fish and brought them to that forsaken valley, where they degenerated into a tribe of intermarried meth heads. The book takes Ree on an allegorical quest in search of her father. All the elements of classical myth are present: she's fortified in an ancestral cave, protected by talismanic clothing, she confronts the overlords and fights some wicked female monsters in her attempt to find her father. But she's seeking more than her father; she seeks the truth, and with it, her family's salvation. This is a heroic story of Ree's bitter coming of age. The language is brutal and gorgeous.

A gripping can't-put-it-down story about life on the fringes of existence in the Ozarks.

More than old cars on concrete blocks, sagging porches and leaky roofs, this is the story of the people and families who live in those places and conditions and their efforts to scratch out a life and surive on the edge of civilization, sometimes going over the edge just to survive and to protect "one's ways."

A young girl in her mid to late teens is forced to grow up before her time to search for her no-count, but sometimes loving father who has skipped out on bail, thereby threatening the family's already meager means to survive. His problems--and the family's problems--are brought on by his last and sometimes rare act of love.

It is a tale of poverty, lawlessness, man's inhumanity to man and, in the end, if not love, then emphathy, showing that family, strange and twisted as family and circumstances may be, still matters in the end. The heroine, Rees Dolly, is more survivor than heroine, and her story stays with you long after the last pages have been read.

The writer's ability to describe scenes and settings and the anxiety of the human soul is exceptional. You feel the winter's bone even in the full warmth of spring. And "Winter's Bone"is an apt title.

Don't recall how this got on my put-on-hold-at-library list, but I am so happy it happened. Loved this book. Ree and extended family (really**** extended) are interesting, scary, wise, fit the Ozark hills and hollow stereotype and also blast it to smithereens. The writing is as thrilling as the story and that's an unbeatable combination. Plan to start with Woodrell's first and make my way through his oeuvre--not too fast, tho, want savor time! Absolutely adore when this happens--discovering a writer with an original voice, with a body of work already behind him/her.