Winter's Bone (2006) by Daniel Woodrell

     Map of the Ozarks

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Winter's Bone (2006)

by Daniel Woodrell

Ozark Hills, Missouri

Missouri:  3/11

    I associate the Ozark mountains with Arkansas, but as the map above clearly demonstrates, most of the Ozarks are in Missouri, as in Winter's Bone, which is just about as Ozarks a book as you can get.  The movie version is mostly remembered for introducing Jennifer Lawrence to audiences, and it was hard not to listen to the Audiobook without picturing her as the narrator, a high school student trying to locate her meth-cook Dad after he skips out on a court date, and the bond attached to that court date, comes due.

  Ree Dolly, of the Ozark Dollies, is forced on her own Odyssey, in the dead of the Missouri winter, taking her from valley to valley, with little help from anyone.  Along the way she is exposed to plenty of bad behavior, though the proceedings can be described as PG 13 for violence, swearing and drug-use. God knows there are moments in the book where a darker turn seems in the card, but Woodrell keeps an element of nobility among his backcountry meth cooks and welfare frauds that is charming to this hardened criminal defense lawyer.