Just finished "Winter's Bone," by Daniel Woodrell. I think this has just been made into a movie.
It's a great title in about five different ways. This is not a cheerful book. But it's a good one... I intend to read several more of his depressing works.
Basic story: Small house in the Ozarks somewhere. Dad is a chef - a meth chef, one whose labs never blow up. But at his last arrest, he listed the house as security with the bail bondsman - and now Dad has skipped out.
Mom's brain fried a long time ago and she's not capable of coherent sentences - leaving daughter Ree, at 17, responsible for herself and her two younger brothers. She can handle that task, barely, with a roof over her head; without it, there is no hope. So it's up to Ree to find Dad.
That certain women who did not seem desperate or crazy could be so deeply attracted to Uncle Teardrop confused and frightened Ree. He was a nightmare to look at but he'd torn through a fistful of appealing wives. Victoria had once been number three and was now number five...
Uncle Teardrop was Jessup's elder and had been a crank chef longer but he'd had a lab go wrong and it had eaten the left ear off his head and burned a savage melted scar down his neck to the middle of his back...Three blue teardrops done in jailhouse ink fell in a row from the corner of the eye on his scarred side...He generally tried to sit with his melted side to the wall.
This was a very good book unless you're big on happy endings. This is not the kind of thing I normally read but it's good enough, as I said, that I'll look into more of his work.
