Winter’s Bone---Though a grim, desperate story, this is quite possibly the best putting-together-of-words in all my reading life. The craft and flow of the words is absolute genius, with gems of phrase on every page. You can feel the cold and the pain and desperation of the questing; you walk the snow-path with bleeding feet, hear the "Begat" line as if it were your own list of blood-kin. Wounded and weary, you make yourself stand up to the fierce, pragmatic women doing the bidding of their implacable patriarch. There's the distinct tang of burnt gunpowder in the air and the gall-bitter scent of squirrel guts as you hunt and clean your meager dinner, and you'll come away with a smoky-shack, hard-life mountain twang to your inner voice.
I have not the words for Woodrell’s words, and cannot tell you enough how impressed I am. Who could ever forget Ree Dolly?
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