‘A marvellous writer’ – Roddy Doyle
‘Complex, poetic, strange and beautiful, conjuring up the musty fields and woods of the Ozarks, and the fiercely independent people who live there’ – Guardian
‘Gripping … Woodrell’s folk are as separate in their rituals and customs as any of Tolkien’s mythical creations’ – Financial Times
Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal, behaviour in his wrenching first collection of short fiction.
Desperation – both material and psychological – motivates his characters.
A husband cruelly avenges the murder of his wife’s pet; an injured rapist is cared for by a young girl, until she reaches breaking point; a disturbed veteran of Iraq is murdered for his erratic behaviour; an outsider’s house is set on fire by an angry neighbour.
There is also the tenderness and loyalty of the vulnerable in these stories – between spouses, parents and children, siblings and comrades in arms – which brings the troubled, sorely tested cast of characters to vivid, relatable life.
‘He has cemented his role as one of American’s greatest writers …. [in] one of the most important collections of short fiction produced in this country in over fifty years’ – William Hastings
‘Complex, poetic, strange and beautiful, conjuring up the musty fields and woods of the Ozarks, and the fiercely independent people who live there’ – Guardian
‘Gripping … Woodrell’s folk are as separate in their rituals and customs as any of Tolkien’s mythical creations’ – Financial Times
Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal, behaviour in his wrenching first collection of short fiction.
Desperation – both material and psychological – motivates his characters.
A husband cruelly avenges the murder of his wife’s pet; an injured rapist is cared for by a young girl, until she reaches breaking point; a disturbed veteran of Iraq is murdered for his erratic behaviour; an outsider’s house is set on fire by an angry neighbour.
There is also the tenderness and loyalty of the vulnerable in these stories – between spouses, parents and children, siblings and comrades in arms – which brings the troubled, sorely tested cast of characters to vivid, relatable life.
‘He has cemented his role as one of American’s greatest writers …. [in] one of the most important collections of short fiction produced in this country in over fifty years’ – William Hastings
Reviews
It brings us all the satisfactions of crime thriller and mystery...The beauty lies in the loveable and wholly believable character of Ree
A suspicion grows that you are reading the sort of book D.B.C Pierre's Vernon God Little might have been, had it been five times as keenly observed and deeply felt
'Woodrell is a marvellous writer'
'Woodrell throws down sentences that will leave you amazed'
'Reading this will make you feel that you walk on very, very thin ice, and know that chaos is very, very close. Such knowledge has many consequences, one of them is exhilaration'
'Brutal, violent and completely gripping'