Set in the border states of Kansas and Missouri during the American Civil War, Woe To Live On explores the nature of lawlessness and violence through the eyes and thoughts of Jake Roedel. During the winter of 1861 Roedel grows up quickly, experiencing a brutal, lawless parody of war without standards or mercy. Woodrell's colloquial dialogue seems to suggest a connection between the America of the 1860's and the present day. Woe To Live On is a renegade western in the style of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man that celebrates the genre while at the same time bushwacking some of it's most celebrated traditions.