The Maid's Version

 The Maid’s Version by Daniel Woodrell 192 pages 

 

The last novel Daniel Woodrell has written is The Maid’s Version, which was published in 2013. I don’t know why he hasn’t published anything since, but that’s none of my business. I had fallen in love with Woodrell’s writing after Winter’s Bone, a helluva horrific book to read.

 

I had read The Maid’s Version back in 2014/2015 and didn’t like it. The structure wasn’t parallel, it didn’t make sense, and I wasn’t sure if there was a real conclusion or not. Recently, Kensington Publishing asked me to write a blurb for their March 2024 release, The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson. It is about the same subject as The Maid’s Version: An unsolved explosion of a dance hall is West Plains, Missouri, which killed a lot of young people. I jumped at the chance. I was hoping to learn more about it than I had when I read Woodrell’s novel.

 

So, after reading it, I decided to go back and give The Maid’s Version another try. “Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the mother of three young boys, works as the maid for a prominent citizen and his family in West Table, Missouri. Her husband is mostly absent, and, in 1929, her scandalous, beloved younger sister is one of the 42 killed in an explosion at the local dance hall. Who is to blame? Mobsters from St. Louis? The embittered local gypsies? The preacher who railed against the loose morals of the waltzing couples? Or could it have been a colossal accident?”

 

I learned one important thing in re-reading this book:  It wasn’t about the explosion. It was about its aftermath and how it haunted a town and its people for the rest of their lives. I was able to follow the non-linear structure better, and I was intrigued to the end. But I still felt something was missing. Therefore, The Maid’s Version receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.