For me, it is not unusual to come to a writer late. Too many books; too little time.
And so it is only recently that I read my first book by Daniel Woodrell.
Woodrell is the Missouri writer whose 1987 book, “Woe to Live On” became the basis of the screenplay for the terrific Ang Lee movie, “Ride with the Devil.” It is about a band of Missouribushwhackers during the Civil War border fights between Missouri and Kansas and Quantrill’s massacre raid on Lawrence.
I had read favorable reviews of some of Woodrell’s more recent books, which have contemporary settings in the Missouri Ozarks, my state’s version of Appalachia, a mix of beauty, bounty and poverty. Each time I thought he was an author I should read.
Then recently a friend recommended his 2006 book “Winter’s Bone” to my wife, who read it quickly, enjoyed it immensely, and passed to me.
Just 224 pages, I read it over several evenings.
I then picked up his 1998 “Tomato Red,” another small book, and read it in a couple of days.
Part of what I enjoyed most about these books is that they give voice and humanity to people most of us would prefer to avoid. It made me realize, for example, that the daughter of methamphetamine cook can have aspirations that are different from my own only in scale.
Winter’s Bone tells the story of Ree Dolly, part of an extended family that has lived generations in an Ozark holler near the border of Arkansas. It is a group that has a rough history and immutable traditions that people outside of the area would find difficult, if not impossible, to understand.
She is a spirited 16-year-old, who looks forward to turning 17, joining the military and escaping the family’s marginal existence in the Ozark hills. She cares for her mother, whose mind is gone as an escape from the difficulties of her life, and for her two brothers, one who was fathered by another family member while her dad was in prison. They live in a house that has been passed through her mother’s family for generations. Having that house makes it possible for them to stay together.
The story revolves around Ree’s search for her father Jessup when she learns that he has skipped bail, which he secured with the house. It and its stand of valuable timber will be lost if he does not return. Ree can imagine them getting by without her father –– they have done that before –– but not without the house. Family might take some of them in separately, but not together. While her brothers’ futures are uncertain in the best of situations, she knows what it will be if they end up being raised by the wrong branch of the family.
During the search, we are introduced to Ree’s family and few friends, some of them fascinating, some of them scary, but all of them real. These are not caricatures or stereotypes. Woodrell lives in the Ozarks and he understands and appreciates lives forged by the hard forces of poverty and prejudice, tradition and dogma.
The tension builds as she travels from holler to hamlet and village during a cold winter’s week looking for her father, the realization growing that he might be dead. In that search she sometimes violates the clan’s ancient codes and her efforts are beaten back, figuratively and literally, by folks who want her to just leave the matter alone.
Woodrell makes the place and the frigid weather characters in their own right. They are as important say as her uncle Teardrop, a crank cook who lost part of his face in a meth blowup, a very scary man who has killed his share but who won’t abandon his niece.
The ending may seem a bit too Hollywood. The book is being made into a movie. But it is not entirely a sell-out and Ree is as admirable a person as you will find in the pages of a book.
Tomato Red, which was published a decade earlier, also involves those living on the margins of an Ozark town. Not as much on the social fringe as the Dolly clan, Jamalee and Jason, and their mother Bev Merridew are just poor.
Woodrell makes you understand what it really means to live on the wrong side of the tracks, where people have to constantly interrupt their conversations to wait for the noise from passing trains to subside.
This story is about Jamalee and her beautiful brother Jason’s scheme to escape their hardscrabble life, with the help of Sammy Barlach, a loser they meet who just wants someplace to belong.
Again, Woodrell brings these people and their small expectations to life without sentimentalizing. Bev, whose former beauty still provides some advantages, accepts her existence as a sometime prostitute, where Jamalee seethes against the prejudice that holds her back. Jason is just trying to figure out his sexuality.
The meanness they encounter comes in natural sequences, without it being rubbed in your face. And they are not entirely sympathetic people. Too often they complicate their already tough existence with bad choices or stupid acts.
In the end, their escapes seem all too plausible, and tragic.
Sometimes Woodrell’s use of language calls a bit too much attention to itself, but in the tradition of the best Southern writers, he brings a specific region and the idiosyncrasies of its inhabitants to life, while telling universal stories.
The Ozarks is a fascinating place. It has beautiful forested hills, trout streams and wonderful vistas that are sometimes marred by the view of a house in which every used up thing someone ever owned has been tossed into the yard.
As a fly fisherman from Kansas City, I spend a lot of time there. I have often wondered as I am driving what goes on in some hamlet down the road. Woodrell has informed me. The same kinds of things that happen everywhere.
Reading these books also reminded me that instead of always diving into the latest books by newest authors, it sometimes is more rewarding to turn back to someone you have missed.