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1-Page Summary of Winter’s Bone
Overall Summary
Deep in the Ozark mountains of Missouri, a family lives in an old house on the edge of a sprawling timberwood. The father is missing and has put up his land as bail for court. Ree Dolly takes care of her two younger brothers and mother who are all hungry and cold due to financial problems. A deputy arrives at their home to tell them that they will lose everything unless the father turns up soon for his court date. He tells Ree that she must find him or else they’ll lose their property too because it’s been used as bail against him not showing up to court.
Ree decides to start her search for Jessup by going to her uncle Teardrop. He is also a crank chef, but he scares Ree. She visits him and tells him how much she needs his help finding Jessup. She asks Teardrop where he thinks Jessup might be hiding out, but he refuses to tell her anything because it’s up to Jessup whether or not he wants Ree in his life. When she continues asking, Teardrop grabs hold of Ree by the hair and shakes her until Victoria steps in and gives Ree fifty dollars before sending her home again.
Ree visits her best friend, Gail Lockrum. Gail dropped out of high school and married a local boy named Floyd; together they have an infant son named Ned. Ree asks to use Gail’s husband’s truck in order to follow up on a lead—she needs to get to the Arkansas border—but when she asks Floyd for permission, he refuses.
The next day, Ree hitches her way to Hawkfall, a village where some of her distant relatives live. When she arrives, a young woman named Megan emerges from one of the homes. She asks after Little Arthur, an acquaintance of her father’s. At Little Arthur’s house, she asks about Jessup and he deflects by saying that he hasn’t seen him in nearly a year; Arthur flirts with Ree and offers her crank and weed but she refuses them both. After this encounter, Megan tells Ree to go up the hill and talk to Thump Milton because he will surely know where Jessup is—although Megan warns that Thump Milton “scares” her. When Ree arrives at Thump Milton’s home his wife Merab turns her away but not before going into the house for ‘most of an hour’. Once back outside again Merab sends Ree on her way with a warning not to return unless it is absolutely necessary.
Ree returns home, where her cousin Blond Milton is waiting for her. He tells Ree that people are talking about her and telling each other stories about how she went to find Jessup even though he told her not to. They drive over to the remains of a meth lab, which they believe was Jessup’s last known location before he disappeared. However, it has been years since the explosion happened and there are weeds up to their necks in some parts of the building. This means that this isn’t his last known location anymore because it’s too hard to tell if anything is still there from so long ago.
At home, Ree teaches her brothers how to fire a shotgun because she’s worried they may need to be able to defend themselves in the near future. Gail shows up and offers them the keys to her in-laws’ truck so they can drive down to Arkansas and visit April.
When the girls arrive at her home, April tells them a story about Jessup that frightened her. She saw him in a bar with some unsavory characters just months ago and he refused to recognize her so as not to put her in danger. On the drive home, Ree thinks she sees Jessup’s car on the road but loses sight of it.
The next day, Gail comes to Ree’s house. Her husband is upset that she stayed out so late and took their baby to his parents’ house. He kicked her out of the house.
