Books with title The Wettest County in the World

Based on the true story of his grandfather and two granduncles, Matt Bondurant’s novel 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 during Prohibition and after. The brothers played a central role in a major conspiracy trial and its violent end. In 1935, Sherwood Anderson, working on a magazine story, finds himself driving along the dusty red roads trying to find the brothers and break 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. Soon to be a major mation picture!

White mule, white lightning, firewater, popskull, wild cat, stump whiskey, or rotgut? Whatever you called it, Franklin County was awash in moonshine in the 1920s. During Prohibition, the Bondurant Boys were moonshiners and notorious roughnecks who ran liquor though Franklin County, Virginia. The Wettest County in the World is their story, a white-knuckle fable of bootlegging, revenge and remorse. Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant's grandfather and two granduncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. Forrest, the eldest brother, is fierce, mythically indestructible, and the consummate businessman; Howard, the middle brother, is an ox of a man besieged by the horrors he witnessed in the Great War; and Jack, the youngest, has a taste for luxury and a dream to get out of Franklin. Driven and haunted, these men forge a business, fall in love, and struggle to stay afloat as they watch the world they know crumble around them. In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men, their dark deeds, their long silences and their deep desires to life.