The Maid's Version
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In 1929, an explosion in a Missouri dance hall killed forty-two people. Who was to blame? Mobsters from St Louis? Embittered gypsies? The preacher who cursed the waltzing couples for their sins? Or could it just have been a colossal accident?
Alma Dunahew, whose scandalous younger sister was among the dead, believes the answer lies in a dangerous love affair, but no one will listen to a maid from the wrong side of the tracks. It is only decades later that her grandson hears her version of events - and must decide if it is the right one.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Woodrell's (Winter's Bone) evocative, lyrical ninth novel is deceptively brief and packs a shimmering, resonant, literary punch. In a grand "gesture of reconciliation" from his father, young Alek is sent to West Table, Mo., to spend the summer of 1965 with his grandmother, Alma Dunahew, a hardworking maid to a wealthy local. The bad blood between Alek's father and Alma stems from her opinion of what transpired just before the 1929 Arbor Dance Hall explosion, a tragedy that claimed her outspoken sister Ruby and 41 others. Who was responsible? Gypsies who threatened the townsfolk? The preacher who believed "vil music, evil feet" deserved to be silenced forever? Or was it Ruby's controversial new (married) beau? Sections about some of those who perished fall between chapters detailing an engaging yarn of hidden secrets, but also one that fast-forwards decades to find an adult Alek addressing a memorial vigil, finally getting the chance to talk about what Alma confided to her grandson during the pivotal summer they spent together. From an economy of poetic prose springs forth an emotionally volcanic story of family, justice, and the everlasting power of the truth.
