The Maid’s Version
Daniel Woodrell
2013, 164 pages
Fiction
Self-described “country noir” writer Daniel Woodrell’s (The Outlaw Album, Winter’s Bone, etc.) latest book is culled from historical events. Twelve-year-old Alek Dunahew spends the summer of 1965 with his grandmother, Alma. One night during a storm, she shares a long-kept story with him: “. . . she cunningly chose that raging moment to begin telling me her personal account of the Arbor Dance Hall explosion of 1929, how forty-two dancers from this small corner of the Missouri Ozarks had perished in an instant . . . and why it happened . . . . a great crime or colossal accident, an ongoing mystery she thought she’d solved. I knew this was a story my dad did not want me to hear from her lips, as it was a main source of their feud, so I was tickled and keen to hear more.” In 1989, the angel on the fire victims’ tomb appears to dance, reigniting interest in the story, and Alek’s father says, “Tell it. Go on and tell it.” Alek unspools the heartbreaking tale bit by bit, introducing suspects, dance hall-goers, and Alma’s family. It’s beautifully told, historically interesting, and perfectly crafted.
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