Based on a true story, The Wettest County in the World talks about The Bondurant Boys, a notorious gang of moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after.
Who would you recommend this book to?
– Bartenders & people who would like to know more on the subject of American Prohibition (1920-1933).
When was this book published?
– 2008
Who is the author?
– Matt Bondurant. He was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia. His first novel “The Third Translation”, was sold in fifteen countries. He currently lives nad writes in Texas.
So, what’s so special about this book?
– Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two grand-uncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. Driven and haunted, these men forge a business, fall in love, and struggle to stay afloat as they watch their family die, their father’s business fail, and the world they know crumble beneath the Depression and drought. White mule, white lightning, firewater, popskull, wild cat, stump whiskey, or rotgut–whatever you called it, Franklin County was awash in moonshine in the 1920’s. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the “wettest county in the world.” In the twilight of his career, Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads trying to find the Bondurant brothers, piece together the clues linking them to “The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,” and break open the silence that shrouds Franklin County. In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men–their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires–to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.