Author(s): Matt Bondurant

Crime

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.