ABOUT THE BOOK

Set in the border states of Kansas and Missouri during the American Civil War, Woe To Live On explores the nature of lawlessness and violence through the eyes and thoughts of Jake Roedel. During the winter of 1861 Roedel grows up quickly, experiencing a brutal, lawless parody of war without standards or mercy. Woodrell's colloquial dialogue seems to suggest a connection between the America of the 1860's and the present day. Woe To Live On is a renegade western in the style of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man that celebrates the genre while at the same time bushwacking some of it's most celebrated traditions.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'Every now and again a novel jumps head and shoulders above the crowd. Nine times out of ten it's because the writer's voice is so different that it demands attention. Daniel Woodrell's exotic and evocative Woe To Live On is a perfect example...Rich, raunchy and riotously readable, Daniel Woodrell is one of the most exciting writers I've discovered in a long time.' - Val McDermid in the Manchester Evening News

'Woodrell alternates between reaming the language with a dry corncob and practising a particularly skilful kind of literary cabinetwork.' - E Annie Proulx

"...but let's agree on Woodrell as the foremost exponent of the poetry of trailer-park trash. Woodrell does the best 'country noir' prose there is, and if you want to be hip read him now..."
- Susie Maguire, Southern Daily Echo

"Woodrell proves once again that he's one of the finest exponents of American noir writing. His seductive and deceptively lazy style lulls the reader into a false sense of security - and then hits him below the belt. In short, he's an original and first-rate story-teller." - Irish News

"Jane Austen saw far less violence in her world, but move her to South Carolina and you'll get some idea of what Daniel Woodrell is up to." - The Spectator

"Terrific." - Literary Review

"Woodrell's not widely known here, but in America his five books to date have had writers as diverse as James Ellroy, Barry Gifford, James Crumley, Carl Hiaasen and E Annie Proulx clearing their throats to sing his praises...Woodrell being better than anyone at the vernacular of desperation, revenge and redemption, with dialogue as good as anything in Elmore Leonard and a skewed unpredictability reminiscent of Harry Crews." - Uncut

"Daniel Woodrell is a storyteller of bristling imagination and muscular prose, who uses the poetically profane language of the trailerpark to wicked effect. " - Bizarre

"At a time when the two dominant strands of male American fiction to emerge in the last couple of decades - contemporary noir and dirty realism - have largely lapsed into self-parody, a writer from the Ozark mountains of Missouri has come along to resuscitate them both." - John Williams, The Independent