Author Whose Books Inspired Multiple Movies Dies of Pancreatic Cancer: RIP to Daniel Woodrell

Author Daniel Woodrell has died. He was 72.

He died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Missouri on November 28, according to his wife, Katie Estill-Woodrell.

Most of Woodrell’s novels are crime fiction that take place in or around the Ozark Mountains, with him describing his own work as “country noir.”

He was best known for his 2006 coming-of-age novel Winter’s Bone, which centers around a teenage girl who must embark on a perilous quest to track down her irresponsible drug-dealing father in the Ozark Mountains after the local sheriff tells her if she does not locate him, her and her two young siblings will be evicted. It was adapted into a 2010 film that launched the star-studded career of Jennifer Lawrence, and was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture.

Two of his other novels were also adapted into movies: his 1987 novel Woe to Live On was adapted by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) in 1999 as Ride With the Devil, and his 1998 novel Tomato Red was adapted into a 2017 thriller starring Julia Garner.

He’s also known for appearing on an episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. Bourdain was a noted fan of Woodrell’s and invited him to join on an episode, but Woodrell ended up breaking his shoulder on camera due to an unfortunate incident with a fishing boat.

Famed author Dennis Lehane, known for writing novels like Shutter Island and Mystic River, once said Woodrell was “as good a novelist as there is writing in this country.”

“He writes high Greek tragedy about low people, and he never panders or looks down on the people he writes about,” he told Esquire Magazine. “As a prose stylist, he’s done what all the best do: taken the regional voice of the world he writes about and turned it into poetry.”

He is survived by his wife and his brother.