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56th out of 88 books
—
150 voters
The Outlaw Album: Stories
Twelve timeless Ozarkian tales of those on the fringes of society, by a "stunningly original" (Associated Press) American master.
Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal behavior in this wrenching collection of stories. Desperation-both material and psychological--motivates his characters. A husband cruelly avenges the killing of his wife's pet...more
Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal behavior in this wrenching collection of stories. Desperation-both material and psychological--motivates his characters. A husband cruelly avenges the killing of his wife's pet...more
Hardcover, 176 pages
Published
October 5th 2011
by Little, Brown and Company
(first published January 1st 2011)
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the first two stories in this collection are perfect, to my mind. they are both revenge stories, where the revenge is played out in very original ways, which i do not wish to spoil here.
after that, the collection veers from its highs to its lows. many of these stories end right when they are starting to get interesting to me. this is what used to make me so frustrated with short stories as a form: i just want more. for example: florianne is about three pages long. and it is a fine short story,...more
Yet another thrilling installment of Kemper’s Bouchercon adventures:
I haven’t read a lot of Daniel Woodrell, but Winter’s Bone and Woe to Live On* had impressed me so much that I made a point to attend a panel that he was on along with Megan Abbott and some others regarding crime stories set in isolated or closed communities.
* (Woe to Live On was turned into a pretty good movie by Ang Lee called Ride With the Devil. Parts of that movie were filmed around the small Kansas town I grew up in, and I...more
I haven’t read a lot of Daniel Woodrell, but Winter’s Bone and Woe to Live On* had impressed me so much that I made a point to attend a panel that he was on along with Megan Abbott and some others regarding crime stories set in isolated or closed communities.
* (Woe to Live On was turned into a pretty good movie by Ang Lee called Ride With the Devil. Parts of that movie were filmed around the small Kansas town I grew up in, and I...more
32 likes · like · see review
These are stories of the darkness of the heart, in which he writes so well about. He has conjured up a motley crew of characters here, some you will find are brutal and dysfunctional. Immerse yourself in the bleak and black abyss as dark as sin itself. There is also tenderness and loyalty in these stories between husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and comrades in arms.
His prose is unique. Characters memorable.
The stories that stood out for me more for their darkness...more
His prose is unique. Characters memorable.
The stories that stood out for me more for their darkness...more
13 likes · like · see review
I know Daniel Woodrell can write -- his pen is his sword and he wields it with deathly and thrilling precision. Nowhere is that on display more than with his novel Winter's Bone which left me breathless and humbled and panting for more. The story of young Ree and her perilous hunt for her missing meth-making father is one of rage and pain and beauty, and knocked me flat I loved it so much. It instantly made it onto my all time favorites list. With this collection of mostly very short stories, Wo...more
7 likes · like · see review
Oct 08, 2011
Ed
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
crime/noir fiction with literary flavor
Recommended to Ed by:
long time fan of author
This slim volume of a dozen stories should appeal to the fans of literary fiction with a decidedly noirish twist and rural flavor. My favorite was "Nightstand," a tale about two generations of veterans from their different wars who share the same primal, raw feelings. Like in most of the stories, there's physical violence and spilled blood. Mr. Woodrell has a unique, distinctive voice which I believe really shines in the historical short story, "Woe to Live On," about a Confederate bushwhacker w...more
Look at the cover art. What do you see? Barren landscape. Dead grass and dead trees beneath a darkening sky. When you look at the interior landscapes of Woodrell's characters, what will you see? About the same. Storms, bleakness, dead things.
Woodrell is a child of the Ozarks. He writes what he knows, and he writes it well. But after a handful of stories, he starts to sound like One-Note Johnny. He may play it on different instruments, but it's still the same note -- Ozark Dark.
Once you figure...more
Woodrell is a child of the Ozarks. He writes what he knows, and he writes it well. But after a handful of stories, he starts to sound like One-Note Johnny. He may play it on different instruments, but it's still the same note -- Ozark Dark.
Once you figure...more
3 likes · like · see review
I bought this book as result of a goodreads recommendation. I found the writer's style very interesting and it made me want to read more of his full-length books. All of the snapshots are of men and women of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas where there appears to be a large number of worthy subjects. Woodrell was fully able to dramatize a number of dark and disturbed people. I am not certain that "Outlaw" is the best description of these individuals. I think that some of these people surv...more
Having read – and loved – Daniel Woodrell’s "Winter’s Bone" and "Woe to Live On" (both among my reviews) I jumped at the chance to see him in person at the main Kansas City Library around Thanksgiving. An LA Times reviewer has referred to Woodrell as an Ozark Faulkner. Calling any author a Faulkner does a disservice to all involved, particularly the one doing the calling. But that’s where we are, I guess. We must compare rather than describe. But I shall now climb off my high horse and say, “not...more
Woodrell is the best writer going. I was so stoked to see this book on the shelf that I bought it at a used bookstore, when it was brand new and I paid full price without hesitation. Not since Thom Jones came and went has there been a more thunderous and subversive voice in the landscape of my readings. Woodrell's use of language reminds me of my grandpa's Mississippi renderings, if my grandpa were willing to come forth with all the darkness southern upbringings dragged through foriegn wars and...more
60. THE OUTLAW ALBUM. (2011). Daniel Woodrell. ****.
This is a compilation of twelve short stories – some very short – that previously appeared in various periodicals and anthologies. One of the stories is pulled from his novel, “Woe to Live On.” It doesn’t matter where they came from, it is to our advantage to have them all in one place. Woodrell is an American writer that has few equals in portraying the lives of a class of people who have different moral and ethical standards; people that we...more
This is a compilation of twelve short stories – some very short – that previously appeared in various periodicals and anthologies. One of the stories is pulled from his novel, “Woe to Live On.” It doesn’t matter where they came from, it is to our advantage to have them all in one place. Woodrell is an American writer that has few equals in portraying the lives of a class of people who have different moral and ethical standards; people that we...more
Description:
The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell is a set of 12 short stories describing "those on the fringes of society". These include a man who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife's dog; a girl who makes her rapist uncle pay for his sins, and a jealousy that could be deadly to a hitchhiker.
Review:
Being a fan of the film version of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone, I had a feeling I would enjoy a set of his "backwoods" short stories. Each of the twelve stories was chillingly realistic...more
The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell is a set of 12 short stories describing "those on the fringes of society". These include a man who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife's dog; a girl who makes her rapist uncle pay for his sins, and a jealousy that could be deadly to a hitchhiker.
Review:
Being a fan of the film version of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone, I had a feeling I would enjoy a set of his "backwoods" short stories. Each of the twelve stories was chillingly realistic...more
Readers may have encountered ten of the twelve stories collected here in periodicals such as Esquire, New Letters, and The Missouri Review, or in anthologies such as A Hell of a Woman, Men From Boys, and Bloodlines. I can imagine that when nestled in amongst other voices in these publications, Woodrell's distinctive prose bites the reader like a snake hiding in a woodpile. His first-person Ozark narratives are hard to mistake as belonging to any other author, and their matter of fact recounting...more
Woodrell writes poetic prose about the people and the land known as the Ozarks, I've never been but I feel like I know it well enough to keep it off of my travel itinerary.
Twelve short pieces of literature with a distinct noir flavour, featuring harsh, brutal and criminal behaviour, told in a way that attempts to capture the simple beauty of even the most offensive strain of humanity. These stories feature plenty of murder, fear, compassion, loss and misunderstanding. Not for the feint of heart...more
Twelve short pieces of literature with a distinct noir flavour, featuring harsh, brutal and criminal behaviour, told in a way that attempts to capture the simple beauty of even the most offensive strain of humanity. These stories feature plenty of murder, fear, compassion, loss and misunderstanding. Not for the feint of heart...more
11 likes · like · see review
Jag är så hänförd av handlingen och Woodrells berättarstil att jag inte vet var jag ska börja. Jag sträckläste novellsamlingen på tåget i morse efter att bara en timma tidigare köpt den på Pocketshop. Och dessförinnan hade boken bara legat på min att-läsa-lista i några dagar. Jag råkade se den och tog en chansning. Vad var det värsta som skulle kunna hända tänkte jag. Och så här i efterhand kan jag känna något i stil med: HUR KAN JAG HA MISSAT DENNA UNDERBARE FÖRFATTARE!? VAR HAR HAN VARIT HELA...more
One of the best novels I've read in a long long time was "Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell. In it, a teenage girl's quest to find her no-good father before their family is kicked out of the only home they know is told in language so full of dramatic turns of phrase that it reminded me of reading the King James Bible. So I set out to read everything else Woodrell has written.
Some of it has been cliche'd throat-clearing, such as his "Bayou Trilogy" (three Elmore Leonard-like books about a bayou-...more
Some of it has been cliche'd throat-clearing, such as his "Bayou Trilogy" (three Elmore Leonard-like books about a bayou-...more
Oct 12, 2011
Spiros
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone looking for visceral prose
Shelves:
new,
i-fought-the-law
A very tasty platter of canapes from Daniel Woodrell, each of these twelve stories packs a punch. Replete with desperation and fierce humor, the short plots never go quite where you expect they will, which is a major achievement in stories this short. Stand outs for me were "Night Stand", a tale of a deadly accidental confrontation between veterans of two different wars, and "One United", in which the dissociative protagonist lives a garbled version of her dreams. "The Horse in Our History" has...more
Deep woods Ozarks hold a people and a morality not readily known to civilization as we know it in the greater world! There's a lawlessness and a psychosis that is such that only the people who live there or were born there are privy to, or dare to venture in amongst.
Daniel Woodrell, famous for the recent movie taken from his award-winning book "Winter's Bone," doesn't hesitate one sentence to shock and horrify the reader with his guts-'n-grit writing about the Ozark characters that populate his...more
Daniel Woodrell, famous for the recent movie taken from his award-winning book "Winter's Bone," doesn't hesitate one sentence to shock and horrify the reader with his guts-'n-grit writing about the Ozark characters that populate his...more
2 likes · like · see review
This book was brutal. Not necessarily in a bad way, either. I was hooked once I got through the first story, and read half of this slim book in my first sitting. The collection of characters are some of the more terrifying cast members in recent memory. They're largely uneducated, but in no way unintelligent. These Ozark mountain people seem to be the silent, brooding types that have more going on inside than shows on the outside.
Wodrell takes us through several bloody and uncomfortable tales th...more
Wodrell takes us through several bloody and uncomfortable tales th...more
The Daniel Woodrell short stories collected in The Outlaw Album have two things in common--they're set in the Ozark Plateau and they are about violence. It's the stuff of Ron Rash and Cormac McCarthy, Chris Knight and James McMurtry, Jesco White and Popcorn Sutton.
The stories of The Outlaw Album are short, ranging from as low as 6 pages to as long as 28 pages. The stories generally get longer--and more difficult--as you go. There are also uncommonly strong across the board, only The Horse in Our...more
The stories of The Outlaw Album are short, ranging from as low as 6 pages to as long as 28 pages. The stories generally get longer--and more difficult--as you go. There are also uncommonly strong across the board, only The Horse in Our...more
A soild mix of short stories about crime in the rural. Some of these are very dark and leave you wanting a shower while others are uplifting albeit in a somewhat somber way.
The stories are a look at how someone might become a murder, how someone might have to deal with a rapist who holds all power, and how a mother might forgive her son for the crimes they commited. It is a psychological look on how crime effects the people that commit it, the people are affected by it directly, or the people w...more
The stories are a look at how someone might become a murder, how someone might have to deal with a rapist who holds all power, and how a mother might forgive her son for the crimes they commited. It is a psychological look on how crime effects the people that commit it, the people are affected by it directly, or the people w...more
I find Woodrell incredibly inspiring, original, and inventive - - - but I didn't really care for this book. I think it may be a 'me' thing more than a "Outlaw Album' thing, but I didn't care for this (or any) collection of short stories that I've ever read. They always seem top brief and rushed or too... Too much like a writing exercise? I always feel like the author's playing with a prompt or purposefully spinning some sort of creative dial and changing up the subject or style on a forced whim...more
Having enjoyed Winter's Bone and having some further interest in the Ozarks (I was born around there, though we didn't stay long enough for me to remember it), I picked up this slim volume of stories. After two or three, I took an annoyed break - Woodrell seemed like a one-trick pony - good with words, but too reliant on darkness/violence as a force for moving the story forward. As a reader, I am as bloodthirsty as they come - I just hate when an honest, enjoyable bit of the ol' ultraviolence is...more
I enjoyed reading Winter's Bone several years back, and when I read the review of The Outlaw Album in the New York Times, I thought I'd give it a shot. Glad I did.
The stories -- more like short vignettes -- all seem to take place in the same part of the Ozarks. Familiar names float from story to story, although there aren't any real connections. Some stories can be set in time, while others are harder to pin down. All the stories feature hard living, violence (sometimes quite graphic), and pride...more
The stories -- more like short vignettes -- all seem to take place in the same part of the Ozarks. Familiar names float from story to story, although there aren't any real connections. Some stories can be set in time, while others are harder to pin down. All the stories feature hard living, violence (sometimes quite graphic), and pride...more
I've got a literary crush on Daniel Woodrell, who's the author of
Winter's Bone
and Lawrence Public Library's guest of honor for Read Across Lawrence in September 2012.
Mr. Woodrell first launched his writing career as a crime novelist with his haunting and gritty Bayou Trilogy featuring Detective Rene Shade in the Louisiana swamp town of Saint Bruno, a place where "tempers went on the prowl and relief was driving a hard bargain." Soon after came Woe to Live On , which was adapted into the Ang L...more
Mr. Woodrell first launched his writing career as a crime novelist with his haunting and gritty Bayou Trilogy featuring Detective Rene Shade in the Louisiana swamp town of Saint Bruno, a place where "tempers went on the prowl and relief was driving a hard bargain." Soon after came Woe to Live On , which was adapted into the Ang L...more
A dozen stories filled with violence and vengeance set amongst the destitute in the Ozarks. Woodrell's pieces feature quick snaps and premeditated acts of cruelty. He writes tightly and his characters actions are understandable. The way he gets in the minds of the violent reminds me of Joyce Carol Oates at her finest.
The most haunting piece for me was Night Stand. A Vietnam vet kills an Iraq vet when he awakes to find the younger man standing naked over his bed in the middle of the night. He fin...more
The most haunting piece for me was Night Stand. A Vietnam vet kills an Iraq vet when he awakes to find the younger man standing naked over his bed in the middle of the night. He fin...more
Daniel Woodrell has been called a regional writer. That's what we call writers who don't write about suburban Connecticut. It's insulting and dismissive, and I'd burn John Cheever's stories for light to read this collection by.
He writes with the artistic efficiency of poetry without artifice, and knows exactly where to begin and end a tale. The rage of class, the inequality that dare not speak its name, begins and ends this collection, perfect bookends for 12 tales of people who've lost somethin...more
He writes with the artistic efficiency of poetry without artifice, and knows exactly where to begin and end a tale. The rage of class, the inequality that dare not speak its name, begins and ends this collection, perfect bookends for 12 tales of people who've lost somethin...more
3 likes · like · see review
I'm so excited to say (for the very first time ever) that I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.
This collection of short stories features tragically troubled characters in gritty and hopeless situations (just my cup of tea). Similar to Winter's Bone, the stories focus on those on the fringes of society that many of us don't consider. Meth dealers, rapists, criminals, and war veterans are the main characters of several of the stories.
Uncle was my favorite of the stories. (view spoil...more
This collection of short stories features tragically troubled characters in gritty and hopeless situations (just my cup of tea). Similar to Winter's Bone, the stories focus on those on the fringes of society that many of us don't consider. Meth dealers, rapists, criminals, and war veterans are the main characters of several of the stories.
Uncle was my favorite of the stories. (view spoil...more
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Just started it, and while I'm not usually one for short stories, this author seems to hit hard and brief, cramming all kinds of strong and scary emotional trauma and impact into a few meagre pages.
----
Continuing and appreciating it. The author's writing style is terse, but not at all removed; instead it sucks you in with a big dose of manly feeling as he tells you the brief, mired, and often violent moments of rednecks, incestuous rap...more
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Continuing and appreciating it. The author's writing style is terse, but not at all removed; instead it sucks you in with a big dose of manly feeling as he tells you the brief, mired, and often violent moments of rednecks, incestuous rap...more
I found Daniel Woodrell in a round about way. I watched a movie on Netflix called Winters Bone. This was a very good, but dark an foreboding movie. The credits said based on the book by Daniel Woodrell. I attempted to reserve the book at the library and found this title sitting on the shelf waiting for me.
The book has 12 short stories. They are mostly about loss and regret and how individuals cope.
Do this-get the book and read the first two stories. It will be worth it just for those two stories...more
The book has 12 short stories. They are mostly about loss and regret and how individuals cope.
Do this-get the book and read the first two stories. It will be worth it just for those two stories...more
I’m not sure what connotation Daniel Woodrell intended for his short story collection “The Outlaw Album,” but I’m preferring to think it was in the sense of a music recording, 12-inch vinyl inside a paper sleeve within a cardboard jacket covered in photos or artwork and notes, played on a turntable, perhaps heard on headphones all the better to decipher lyrics and decode meaning. Both Woodrell and I are old enough to have bought records at the music store before the pre-tape days, before CD, bef...more
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Growing up in Missouri, seventy miles downriver from Hannibal, Mark Twain was handed to me early on, first or second grade, and captivated me for years, and forever, I reckon. Robert Louis Stevenson had his seasons with me just before my teens and I love him yet. There are too many others to mention, I suppose, but feel compelled to bring up Hemingway, James Agee, Flannery O'Connor, John McGahern,...more
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13 fév. 12:26
13 fév. 12:28