The Outlaw Album: Stories

“Woodrell writes about violence and dark deeds better than almost anyone in America today, in compact, musical prose that doesn’t dwell on visceral detail. An unerring craftsman, he can fully describe a murder in one rich sentence…. Most of the stories deal with the darkest recesses of the human heart, and once you begin reading them you can’t stop.”

(New York Times Book Review, Donald Ray Pollock)

“An intense volume of fury and blood in the Ozarks, it crystallizes Woodrell’s slicing wit and unflinching confrontation with criminality and tragedy.”

(Kansas City Star, Donna Seaman)

“The Outlaw Album is a collection of stories by one of the world’s great novelists, Daniel Woodrell, and it’s brilliant.”

(Guardian, “Books of the Year”, Roddy Doyle)

“A stunner. Woodrell has the rare ability to tell compelling stories rooted in familiar soil that are simultaneously simple and complex, local and universal, funny and tragic.”

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Best Books of 2011”)

“Woodrell’s prose is spare, even stern, yet capable of unexpected lyricism. Amid the rage, despair, and hatred his characters live with, he teases out and displays their deep stores of love and loyalty, and a surprisingly bracing humor.”

(Boston Globe, Kate Tuttle)

“A writer whose words flow with the elemental power of Cormac McCarthy, William Gay, and Chris Offutt, he’s chipped an impression of the Ozarks and its people in stone that will endure time…. Let these stories be your Bible.”

(Associated Press, Chris Talbott)

“The human desperation behind the violence is gripping. If anyone understands what motivates a man to keep shooting a corpse with a squirrel rifle, it’s Woodrell.”

(Entertainment Weekly, Melissa Maerz)