My emotions want to give this book a higher rating than I did. The fact is the story is not "monumental", but it is more than worth absorbing. Many a reader may not chose to pick up this volume because it deals with Missouri bushwackers during the Civil War. Indeed it has its share of violent encounters to turn off the more squeamish. One might compare it in its own way to The Red Badge of Courage. But, folks, I'm here to tell you that this has some of the best written prose I've ever read. The author has a masterful touch in turning a phrase that is as soothing to the soul as the soft touch from a loved one, as heart-warming as the shared laugh from a good friend. For one small sample, with three of the men discussing a well-regarded young woman, one says, "She is coltish of attitude, with an ungainly gallop of spirit." Much later, when two of the men are regarding the new infant of the same young woman, one says, "Babies is something I never can believe." "What do you mean!", says the other. "Well, look at it. Do you believe that thing will shout and holler and haul water someday?" And then the other man relates to the reader in the first-person, "To realize that this little handful was actually a person is to have faith in a miracle of dimensions." This book was turned into an Ang Lee movie, "Ride With the Devil", which I have not seen, but, while I can see the dialogue coming through in the transition, I have a hard time imagining the first-person narrative will be done the justice it deserves. ( )

Living in a community where we celebrate Bushwhacker Days, I have been wanting to read this novel for a long time but have not been able to find it. The movie is excellent; the book is gripping and raw.

Daniel Woodrell does not editorialize or put thoughts into the characters' minds. He merely presents events without embellishment; the reader can decide what to think. I believe this is probably one of the best descriptions of the lawlessness and violence that accompanied the Civil War -- violence without cause or belief to justify it.

To my grandmother, who was borm just after the Civil War, the worst thing you could call someone was to call them a Bushwhacker. I understand why. Woodrell does an excellent job in painting a pretty ugly picture. ( )

Jake Roedel and his revenge-driven posse of vigilantes are riding through Missouri doing what they can to further the Rebel cause in the Civil War. As Jake tells the reader in this first person account, they "were afield, feeling wolfish, searching for victims. They were in good supply." (21) The First Kansas Irregulars were outnumbered so they spent more time hiding than fighting the Yanks. "There were so many of them that we could be but a wrong nail in their boots, painful to walk on but not crippling." (70)

It's difficult to read about the casual violence that took place in the cracks between the major battles of the Civil War. As the war progressed, the killing and sorrow built up turning a 16-year-old boy toward "a new territory of the soul." (147) Jake was buoyed up by friendship with his "near brother" Jack Bull Chiles and his growing fondness of Holt, a black man fighting for the cause.

This is an early book by Daniel Woodrell, the Missouri "country noir" writer, and it shows his skillful way with words and his understanding of human nature. He doesn't leave us hanging in a hopelessly violent world. As Jake says, "Hope, I was learning, is a hardy comrade but not too trustworthy." (131) It may not have been trustworthy but hope was always there and lead Jake into taking a moral stand against an immoral time in our history. ( )

Not your typical novel of the Civil War. There are no great battles--this is guerrilla warfare in Missouri and Kansas, and boy, is it a mess.
Once again (although this was one of his earlier works), Woodrell has put together a story of the grainier side of the Ozarks, during the Civil War, in a state that doesn't really know what side it's on. Jake Roedel is a sixteen year old "secesh," riding with his best friend and a group of other outlaws determined to eliminate as many Federalists and Jayhawkers as they possibly can, and as brutally as they possibly can. Jake begins to question what's really important to him, but how do you escape this kind of war?
Woodrell's writing is magical. He has a way of moving the story along at a pace that makes it nearly impossible to put down, even when you don't think you can handle one more description of a gunshot wound. It's rough, but worth the read. And I especially love the Runyonesque speech of these characters: "I don't know that the time is yet right for robbing wholesale" and "I think it is as right as two rabbits." None of this pretend "y'all" kind of contracted speech that you see in some Ozark books. Good stuff, this. ( )

Filmed as 'Ride With the Devil'