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THE OUTLAW ALBUM
by Daniel Woodrell
Little, Brown, December 2011
176 pages
$24.99
ISBN: 0316057568


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

THE OUTLAW ALBUM is a collection of short stories by Daniel Woodrell, who is also the author of the novel WINTER'S BONE which was made into a prize-winning film. The dozen pieces in this slim book are set in the same area as the novel and deal with characters similar to the ones in it. These are powerful stories that hit you hard even though some of them are quite short, varying in length from six pages to 28. Woodrell is a writer unafraid to look deeply into the troubled souls of his characters. What he finds there he writes about in haunting and poetic prose, creating a dark world that stays with the reader long after the collection of stories has been finished. In one story, a man who cannot love finds himself hanging upside down in a car wreck, waiting to die. In another, one step in a house has been painted black to cover the bloodstains of the father's suicide. An abuser, in another tale, becomes the helpless plaything of his victim.

All of these stories share a common setting, the stark rural backwoods of the Ozark Mountains. They share some common themes as well. As though a life of poverty and want is not difficult enough, some of the characters in these stories are dealing with the aftermath of having fought in a war. The way that their war experiences affect them in the present is too complicated to be labeled merely as posttraumatic stress syndrome, though this phrase undoubtedly will come to mind. Vietnam and Iraq veterans populate these stories, as well as one taciturn veteran of the Civil War, and all are deeply troubled.

Another theme here is related to the past, and how events that did or did not happen affect the present. Woodrell writes very subtly. In one story, purportedly about the history of a horse, the real story is about prejudice and murder. In another, a father suspects that something terrible happened to his daughter long ago, but he has no proof and must continue to live amongst the people he senses had to do with her disappearance. Woodrell writes about relationships, about family. He shows us parents who cannot forgive their children, fathers who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents.

Although these stories cannot be labeled as any sort of traditional mystery or thriller, each one creates a mystery and then slowly brings it to a resolution. The stories are suspenseful and intriguing, well written and impossible to predict. This is a book that cannot be recommended too highly. Find it. Read it.

Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.

Reviewed by Anne Corey, December 2011

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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