The men came to mind as mostly idle between nights of running wild or time in the pen, cooking moon and gathering around the spout, with ears chewed, fingers chopped, arms shot away, and no apologies grunted ever. The women came to mind bigger, closer, with their lonely eyes and homely yellow teeth, mouths clamped against smiles, working in the hot fields from can to can't, hands tattered rough as dry cobs, lips cracked all winter, a white dress for marrying, a black dress for burying.
I saw, and loved, the film adaptation of Winter's Bone years ago and that made me hesitant to read the book – I didn't want to retroactively downgrade my enjoyment of the movie if it wasn't faithful to a superior read; and besides, as basically a mystery story, how would the book hold my attention when I remember how it all ends? I was also made hesitant by the number of reviews that dismiss Daniel Woodrell's writing as so much MFA wankery – as obviously workshopped overwriting is my number one personal bugbear, I didn't see how the actual book could improve upon the movie made from it. And yet, the film and the book both have their strengths: whereas the movie used the visuals to create mood and tension, the book is able to get deep into the main character's mind for the same effect; able to give more historical/familial context for her current struggles. And while the writing was certainly crafted, perhaps even to excess, it wasn't fatally so for my tastes – I was crying by the end of this book and I can't fault writing that touches me.
You must have heard what Dollys are, ain't you, mister?The basic plot: Ree Dolly is sixteen years old and taking care of her two younger brothers (ten and eight) and her helplessly demented mother in their creaky old house in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri while her father, Jessup – a meth cook who has done a long stretch in prison before – has disappeared, promising to come back soon with a pile of cash. A bailbondsman comes to the house one day to explain that Jessup had put the family home up for bond, and if he doesn't show up for court the following week, Ree and her family would have nowhere to live. Desperate to find her father and make him appear for his court date, Ree starts asking questions around the valley. But despite being halfway related to everybody for a hundred miles, and despite being a kid just trying to take care of her family, her questions are met with stonewalling or menace by these code-of-silence-trained inlaws and outlaws.
Told from a third person limited point-of-view, following Ree around and seeing inside her head was wholly satisfying. As a character, she's strong without being offputting; caring without being a pushover; she's snarky, brave, and clever. Her deepest desire is to join the army as soon as possible (on her upcoming seventeenth birthday, as did the author himself to escape the area), and as she washes her mother's hair or shoots and skins squirrels for breakfast or chops up potatoes and onions for hash, she makes sure to teach her little brothers how to do these things, as raising them has fallen to her. Jessup's disappearance has put a hitch in Ree's plans, and as she clomps through snowstorms in her combat boots, long skirts, and her Mawmaw's old buttonless overcoat, everything from the people to the weather to the landscape seems conspired against the girl making progress in her quest; and yet, Ree persists, even under threat. Woodrell stands accused of overwriting the scenery, but it all worked for me:
Clouds looked to be splitting on distant peaks, dark rolling bolts torn around the mountaintops to patch the blue sky with grim. Frosty wet began to fall, not as flakes nor rain but as tiny white wads that burst as drops landing and froze a sudden glaze atop the snow. The bringing wind rattled the forest, shook limb against limb, and a wild tapping noise carried all about. Now and then a shaking limb gave up and split from the trunk to land below with a sound like a final grunt.(Incidentally, the cold is such a major part of this story that I don't imagine it would have been as impactful if set at another time of year.) I liked the backstory about the original Dolly settlers – with the Fist of God prophet and scrying the guts of the golden fish – and the rift it set up amongst branches of the family. The part that touched me to tears – and this is the only spoilery bit – was after Ree was beaten, and she knows they'll lose the house, and as she lays broken in bed under the influence of painkillers, she tries to plan how to move her Mom and brothers into one of the nearby caves like some of those original settlers were forced to; I don't remember any of this (other than the thumpin) from the movie, and it moved me that Ree's mind couldn't stop looking for solutions even as she lay nearly dead. I was touched by Ree's physical pain, but also by the indignity of being beaten to the point where she lost control of her bladder and her bowels and she – the strong one, the caregiver – needed intimate physical care:
All her aches were joined as a chorus to sing pain throughout her flesh and thoughts. Gail stood her straight and naked and cleaned her body as she would a babe's, using the soiled skirt to swab the spread muck from her ass and thighs and behind the knees. Gail touched her fingers to the revealed welts and bruises and shook between cries. When Ree moved she came loose and sagged as the chorus inside hit fresh sharp notes. Her agony was the song and the song held so many voices and Gail lowered her into the bathtub where sunk to her chin in tepid water she marked a slight hushing of all the chorus but the singers in her head.This community that Woodrell sketches is alarming in its codes of honour and practises; this hinterland of lawlessness where a mere girl – who wouldn't dream to ask anyone for food even as her family is reduced to having unbuttered grits for dinner again – is threatened and abused for asking distant cousins if they happened to have seen her father around; more horrifying for knowing that these places do exist beyond the edges of the American Dream. The prose does tend to be overdone, but to my tastes it suited the setting and the quest-like nature of Ree's struggle; Ree herself was a superbly drawn, believable character. And I cried: I would like to be coolly sophisticated and say that I'm unaffected by deliberate tugs at my heartstrings, but I was made to care for Ree and I connected to her and the author through the words he chose, and for that, I have to call this book a complete success.
