What do you do when your meth-cooking father goes missing in the Missouri Ozarks? Ask your relatives? Go to the cops? Dig for evidence yourself?

These are the options facing Ree Dolly, protagonist of Daniel Woodrell's 2006 novel Winter's Bone. Woodrell's described his Ozark-based work as "country noir" - a term we spend a minute or two attempting to define before launching into our discussion of the novel that was later adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Jennifer Lawrence. 

Bear with us as this episode gets started. We clearly needed to talk about Christmas trees, rowdy neighbors, and nine-volt batteries before discussing family and violence in rural America.

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