Ron Baird's Blog - Posts Tagged "author"
Under the guise of research, I've spent a solid week reading the works of Daniel Woodrell. What a stunning experience it has been. Seven novels in 22 years and I have a feeling that very few know of him.
Maybe, unless you're John Steinbeck or more recently Stephen Hunter, the mileau--the dregs of southern culture--the poor white trash--just aren't worthy of much interest.
But Woodrell makes it interesting if not particularly comfortable. I have to say there is absolutely no formula to this guy's work. Some are hopeful, showing how the human spirit can survive in such dire circumstances, how others are inevitably lost, and some of the absolutely twisted results may result. And one is even humorous.
I've been reading these to get an idea of the styles of writing out there on this subject because I'm going to set my next novel in the midst of centuries old clan and internecine warfare in the "modern" South. So I've read Hunter's and Chris Offut's work, as well as Joe R. Lansdale's novels set in SE Texas.
They are all good, but to me Woodrell's are the most honest and therefore the best. One of his books (Woe To Live On), has been made into an excellent movie (Ride With the Devil)set on the Kansas/Missouri border during the Civil War. Woodrell wrote the screenplay and it's probably the most realistic movie of those times, or even a western I have seen.
If you might be interested, start off with Give Us a Kiss and follow with Winter's Bone. If you like that, try the Death of Sweet Mister and Tomato Red. Then read Muiscle for the Wing, an early novel that's stylistically like James Lee Burke, but may proceed Burke at least with the character of Cletus Purcell.
Next (really!) The rough plot.
Maybe, unless you're John Steinbeck or more recently Stephen Hunter, the mileau--the dregs of southern culture--the poor white trash--just aren't worthy of much interest.
But Woodrell makes it interesting if not particularly comfortable. I have to say there is absolutely no formula to this guy's work. Some are hopeful, showing how the human spirit can survive in such dire circumstances, how others are inevitably lost, and some of the absolutely twisted results may result. And one is even humorous.
I've been reading these to get an idea of the styles of writing out there on this subject because I'm going to set my next novel in the midst of centuries old clan and internecine warfare in the "modern" South. So I've read Hunter's and Chris Offut's work, as well as Joe R. Lansdale's novels set in SE Texas.
They are all good, but to me Woodrell's are the most honest and therefore the best. One of his books (Woe To Live On), has been made into an excellent movie (Ride With the Devil)set on the Kansas/Missouri border during the Civil War. Woodrell wrote the screenplay and it's probably the most realistic movie of those times, or even a western I have seen.
If you might be interested, start off with Give Us a Kiss and follow with Winter's Bone. If you like that, try the Death of Sweet Mister and Tomato Red. Then read Muiscle for the Wing, an early novel that's stylistically like James Lee Burke, but may proceed Burke at least with the character of Cletus Purcell.
Next (really!) The rough plot.
