The Maid's Version

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2013 (also a Big Fall Books Preview 2013 selection): From the opening line--"She frightened me at every dawn that summer..."--Daniel Woodrell sets a spooky tone in his ninth novel (his first since Winter's Bone). Based on a true story, this slim volume reimagines the horrific night when dozens were killed in a mysterious explosion at an Ozarks dance hall, the night "all hell came callin'." Years later, in the summer of 1965, our narrator's grandmother tells him her version of that night’s events and, eventually, the boy’s father encourages him, "Go on and tell it." The result is a story of hard times and hard people, of secrets, betrayals, and revenge. The murky, resilient truth of that night ripples across the family’s future, unfolding on the page like a mash-up of Faulker, Flannery O'Connor, Johnny Cash, and the bible. This is an entirely original, brutal, and darkly elegant book, and Woodrell is a storyteller at the top of his game. --Neal Thompson