The Maid's Version: A Novel

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