Here it comes, dear reader, another love letter to the work of Daniel Woodrell from your dear old Nerd. I wish I could, after having read all of his work at this point, have something controversial, some nit-pick at the very least, to say about one of his novels, but I just can’t find much in the way of fault. That said, if you pick up Woe to Live On and don’t absolutely love the living shit out of it, let me know. I mean, I might hunt you down and cut your lying, filthy contrarian throat…but let me know all the same.
In the novel we follow young Jake Roedel, son of Dutch immigrants in Missouri, as he fights with the proud Southern bushwhackers against the Federals (the Union army) and the dirty-ass Kansas Jayhawkers during the Civil War. Though his comrades are suspicious of him as they are opposed to new-ish immigrants and the Dutch in particular, Roedel soon proves himself a fierce warrior. But as the war progresses and the bushwhackers reveal themselves to be more thieves than freedom fighters, Roedel experiences a coming of age more dark-hearted and savage than most boys ever will.
As with all of Woodrell’s work, though the misery of such a violent existence is never down-played, he still manages to show the appeal, to capture the excitement and adventure of being young and riding horses, shooting bad guys. Watching your brothers die and having to kill people scarcely different from yourself is pretty fucking grim, but then you get to cap the day off with lots of whiskey and joking with your friends, maybe bedding a woman sympathetic to the cause later if you’re handy enough.
But Roedel eventually feels alienated from the bushwhackers, his reason for joining the cause and defying his father being his undying devotion to his life-long childhood friend and fellow bushwhacker Jack Bull Chiles, son of a prosperous Southerner who owned slaves. Eventually Roedel forms a bond with a freed slave named Holt, who fights with the bushwhackers due to his love for his boyhood white friend George Clyde. But when both Jake and Holt lose their friends and eventually take part in the massacre on Lawrence, Kansas in retaliation against the Jayhawkers, the two outsiders start to wonder just what they’re fighting for anymore.
With prose that is both stylish and direct at the same time and characters that are as refreshingly un-PC as their time and setting demands, Woe to Live On is the whole fucking package. Both romantic and bleak, a party and a death march, Woodrell’s novel is just the type of book I wish my junior year English teacher would have made the whole class read. Maybe, with its handsome-looking reprinting going down in 2012 and Woodrell’s star rising more and more every year, some savvy-as-hell teacher (they could be teaching US History as well – doesn’t matter to me) will get the appropriate hair up his or her ass and make that shit part of the curriculum. It may be more violent and controversial than most kids might be prepared for, but it could also make life-long readers out of some others as well.
Pete – Some days I just hate you. This is the last Woodrell I have left to read and I, of course, get my hands on it until Hatchette reissues it.
Another Woodrell must have. Can’t wait.
Wow – I was in the exact same situation – having read all of Woodrell’s work but “Woe”. Every day I looked online for a copy I could afford. Finally, when I got my review copy of “The Outlaw Album”, I decided I couldn’t review it without having read “Woe” – so I broke down and paid $60 for a ripped-up copy that had apparently been gnawed on by a large rodent. But here’s the thing -once I read it, it only took me 2 days to turn around and resell it on Amazon myself…I even made $10 off the deal! It was lucky, too, because “Outlaw” contains a retelling of the events in “Woe” from a now-elderly Jake Roedel, which would’ve been confusing if I hadn’t read “Woe.” Good to know I wasn’t alone in my frustration! Publishers, take note!
I got a movie tie-in copy from the library a county over. Was on the waiting list for well over a year. Copy was *beat* to shit but intact.