Pages

Sunday, November 30, 2025

DANIEL WOODRELL: R.I.P.

Sad news. American novelist and short story writer  Daniel Woodrell passed away Friday (11/28), at his home in West Plains, MO. Woodrell coined the phrase "country noir."

My heart and sympathy go out to his family and friends. He was an amazing writer, and a valued member of the mystery community. He will be missed. 


Mr. Woodrell was best known for his 2006 novel, “Winter’s Bone,”which became an acclaimed, Oscar-nominated movie four years later. A teenage Jennifer Lawrence starred as Ree Dolly, a girl in rural Missouri whose family home will be seized unless she finds her father, a meth cook on the lam.
Two more of Mr. Woodrell’s novels were adapted as films: “Woe to Live On” (1987), which became “Ride With the Devil” (1999), directed by Ang Lee, and “Tomato Red” (1998), which in 2017 became a movie of the same title starring Julia Garner.

Despite the attention from Hollywood, Mr. Woodrell did not become a public figure himself. Instead, he was an artist admired by close observers of contemporary fiction as a master storyteller of rural America.



More to come. 

No comments:

Post a Comment