Woe to Live on - Softcover

Woodrell, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812589793 ISBN 13: 9780812589795

Publisher: Tor Books, 1989

Synopsis

During the Civil War, fifteen-year-old Jake Roedel joins the First Kansas Irregulars and after coming face to face with unrestrained violence, comes to question his loyalties

About this title

Review:

PRAISE FOR WOE TO LIVE ON

"[A] fine novel...Daniel Woodrell has captured the devastation of war and, more importantly, the twisting of men's minds." "United Press International""

PRAISE FOR WOE TO LIVE ON
"[A] fine novel...Daniel Woodrell has captured the devastation of war and, more importantly, the twisting of men's minds." "United Press International""

PRAISE FOR WOE TO LIVE ON

"[A] fine novel...Daniel Woodrell has captured the devastation of war and, more importantly, the twisting of men's minds."--United Press International

"The violence is fast and understated, and bawdy humor relieves the story's intensity."--Kansas City Star

"A renegade Western...that celebrates the genre while bushwhacking its most cherished traditions...Jake Roedel recites his tale of woe in an improbably rustic idiom, with a malignant humor and a hip sensibility that are wise beyond his years and way ahead of his times."--Chicago Tribune

"Woodrell pins it down just right...speaks to the universal cruelty of civil war."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

From the Back Cover:

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, friendship and loyalty, through the eyes and thoughts of Jake Roedel. During the winter of 1861 Roedel grows up fast, experiencing a brutal 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 its most celebrated traditions.

'Daniel Woodrell knows things, terrifically wonderful and funny and degenerate things that speak to the best of the human soul in the worst of circumstances.' Dee Brown

'Like William Kennedy's, Woodrell's prose has a lyrical quality that effectively evokes a sense of place.' San Francisco Examiner

'Woodrell's people live out there in that world of rare fiction that is realer than real.' Robert Campbell

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0812589793
• ISBN 13: 9780812589795
• Binding: Paperback