I finished Daniel Woodrell's new novel Winter's Bone a while back - actually a few days after I received it - and was really dazzled. It has the pacing of a short story with all the fleshed out details of a novel. At about 200 pages, it's the shortest book I've read in a while, but it packs quite a punch.
I don't know if a plot summary would do you any good - essentially Ree Dolly sets out to find her missing father, who has supposedly jumped bail using their crappy little house as collateral. That puts the family's meager lives in danger, and Ree decides to find him - dead or alive. The setting is the Missouri Ozarks (where Woodrell is from), and I can't even tell you what decade the events take place. The bizarre backwoods subculture covers a lot of territory, including some strange local religious fables that are sprinkled across the narrative but (wisely) left to the reader's imagination to puzzle over the details.
Otherwise, the plot is razor sharp, without sacrificing the character of Ree, who is the strongest heroine I've read in a while. I feel pretty safe in calling this my favorite book this year. It's a quick read, which means it's gonna be a fantastic re-read when the weather turns chilly in the fall, a more appropriate setting for Winter's Bone.
(Read an excerpt and hear an interview with Woodrell here. Read about Woodrell in USA Today here - glad to see he's getting the attention he deservers.)
I also read Woodrell's Tomato Red on vacation and am working on The Death of Sweet Mister. Both are pretty awesome in their own right. Despite a high-profile Hollywood adaptation (Ang Lee's grossly underappreciated epic Ride With The Devil), Woodrell remains pretty obscure. I count him among my favorite novelists now. Interesting note: according to USA Today, locations are already being scouted for the film adaptation of Winter's Bone.
I'm also working on Tom Franklin's Smonk, which I was really jazzed about (loved his previous book Hell At The Breach). Unfortunately, it already reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, which I recently put down about four-fifths of the way through because I just couldn't take any more nihilistic violence. I gotta keep slogging through Smonk because it's way too early to call it one way or the other, but so far I'm a bit disappointed.