Biography

Dan Woodrell comes from a long line of Ozarkers that stretch back before the Civil War and currently lives in the Ozark town of West Plains, Missouri. A high school dropout he joined the marine corps at 17, but the military and he saw things differently. A period of post military drifting ended up at the University of Kansas and a Michener fellowship at the Iowa Writers School, where he was definitely the odd man out. He moved around for over ten years, but taking a regular job was never a realistic option, so he has had to commit to doing what he really wanted - writing.

His first novel, Under the Bright Lights, used the noir form and bought him high praise and recognition from fellow writers. He has also written two other noir novels featuring the Shade family, Muscle for the Wing and The Ones You Do, the civil war novel, Woe To Live On the country noir, Give Us A Kiss and his latest, the highly acclaimed The Death Of Sweet Mister.

It was Woodrell himself who coined the term 'country noir' as a tentative effort to describe the area in which he's working. In an interview with Leonard Gill he expands on that:

'There’s a whole vein of American fiction that never got the above-board recognition but that you just can’t kill with a stick. It keeps coming back and back. Guys like Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) and Edward Anderson (Thieves Like Us), guys I feel a real kinship with. You can call it social realism, or you can call it noir, or something else altogether that I haven’t thought of.'

But perhaps the pigeon-holing is less important than Woodrell's keen sense of the vernacular and his ability to seed his work with sparking one-liners which give his work a distinctive edge.

Daniel Woodrell and Film

Ride with the Devil has been filmed by Ang Lee (The Ice Storm, Eat Drink Man Woman, The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands). Co-screenwriter with Ang Lee was James Schamus (as above). The film starred Skeet Ulrich (Scream, As Good As It Gets), Tobey Maguire (Pleasantville, The Ice Storm), Jeffrey Wright (Angels In America: Perestroika, Basquiat) and in her feature film debut, pop star and poet, Jewel. The film’s co-stars were Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Michael Collins, The Velvet Goldmine), Simon Baker-Denny (LA Confidential) and James Caviezel. The video is currently available from Blackstar.

Daniel Woodrell published by No Exit Press Ride With The Devil Give Us A Kiss Woe To Live On Under The Bright Lights Muscle For The Wing The Ones You Do Tomato Red The Death Of Sweet Mister Limited edition Signed and numbered The Death Of Sweet Mister (pb)