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Winter's Review
Feb. 6th, 2012 01:49 pmHi,
So in my current edition of Lapham's Quarterly (review forthcoming), I came across an excerpt from Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell. It was a brisk, sparse piece of writing and I was curious to find out more. So I picked up the book from the library and zipped through it. This is partially because Winter's Bone is under 200 pages long, but mostly because it was a good read.
So in the book, 16 year-old Ree Dolly takes care of her mother and two younger brothers in their rundown shack in the backwoods of Missouri. Her dad's a petty crook mostly known for his skill in concocting meth but he's been gone for weeks. Then one day a Deputy drives up and tells Ree that her dad has jumped bail and if he doesn't show up for court in four days, they'll come and take the farm away leaving Ree and her family destitute. The book follows Ree's efforts to track down her dad.
As I said, the writing is very crisp and sparse. The author says a lot with just a little. It fits when describing a hard, private bunch of people who prefer to let their silences do the talking. But now that Ree is desperate to hold onto the family farm, she has to start asking questions no one wants answered and that peels back the layers of obligation that tie all these people together.
A fun book. Apparently it was a pretty good movie too.
later
Tom
So in my current edition of Lapham's Quarterly (review forthcoming), I came across an excerpt from Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell. It was a brisk, sparse piece of writing and I was curious to find out more. So I picked up the book from the library and zipped through it. This is partially because Winter's Bone is under 200 pages long, but mostly because it was a good read.
So in the book, 16 year-old Ree Dolly takes care of her mother and two younger brothers in their rundown shack in the backwoods of Missouri. Her dad's a petty crook mostly known for his skill in concocting meth but he's been gone for weeks. Then one day a Deputy drives up and tells Ree that her dad has jumped bail and if he doesn't show up for court in four days, they'll come and take the farm away leaving Ree and her family destitute. The book follows Ree's efforts to track down her dad.
As I said, the writing is very crisp and sparse. The author says a lot with just a little. It fits when describing a hard, private bunch of people who prefer to let their silences do the talking. But now that Ree is desperate to hold onto the family farm, she has to start asking questions no one wants answered and that peels back the layers of obligation that tie all these people together.
A fun book. Apparently it was a pretty good movie too.
later
Tom
