The Maid’s Version by Daniel Woodrell
Woodrell, more famous for the excellent novel, Winter’s Bone, wrote a novella called The Maid’s Version. The story deals with an explosion in a garage next door to a Saturday night dance in rural Appalachia some fifty or sixty years ago. The mystery of what happened that fateful night is doled out in hints during a collection of vignettes told from the perspective of various survivors or relatives of the deceased. Generally, the focus is more on the color of the narrators and the texture of small town life than it is on the mystery itself, whose resolution is a tad overly complicated for my tastes.
Interesting, well written at points, good ear for dialog, but otherwise not nearly as impressive as the rural-noir Winter’s Bone.
No comments:
Post a Comment