The Wettest County in the World: A Novel Based on a True Story

by Matt Bondurant

Book Overview

*The inspiration for the major motion picture Lawless*

Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant's grandfather and two granduncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping and gritty tale of bootlegging, brotherhood, 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. Howard, the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416561404
• ISBN13: 9781416561408
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Really Good Book (And Movie)

Anyone who has Netflix can watch an excellent movie adaptation of this book. The movie is called "Lawless". As I watched the movie I was sure I had read this book. I love books about historical times in the US, especially the South. Anyone reading this it's February 2022 so try to catch the movie on Netflix while it's still around.

Enticing, Graphic, Americana, and Utterly Brilliant

I am a sucker for good historic fiction and this is an excellent slice of Americana from the red clay dirt of Virginia: Franklin County, to be exact. The story starts in 1918 with the introduction of the Bondurant family and the trials of the day - the great influenza epidemic. From there the story jumps to 1934 (current timeframe) and then to and from 1928 as it brings the background into the story. This is done very nicely and the story is brought together from several angles using the real life reporter/writer - Sherwood Anderson (author of Winesburg, Ohio - now available from the Guttenberg Project public domain), as way to tell the story from the present tense. Anderson mentions that he has had run-ins with Hemmingway and Billy Faulkner - and as I read this story, I couldn't help but to see Bondurant's attempt at a similar style to Faulkner, but with an updated and more modern flair. The characterizations are rich and peeled back like an onion to reveal layer after layer of the main characters' history and development. The author also uses a technique that I haven't seen - there are no quotations to delineate the verbalizations between characters. Not unlike some of the masters of the past, Bondurant has established a writing persona - i.e. Faulkner's use of not identifying the character and making the reader use their own identification through the conversation. Matt Bondurant calls this a work of fiction based on fact from his family's legend - thereby giving the reader a glimpse into the Bondurant family tree. The time frame are the years just before prohibition has been extinguished, and the moonshine business is in full swing in Franklin County with the Bondurant brothers thick in it. There is a little of everything in this book and the author concisely tells the tale in about 300 pages. But the story is not just told to the reader, it is described in terrific detail with sometimes graphic and sometimes beautiful prose. As you are grabbed by the story, it is nearly impossible to put down this book. The author has researched his subject material very well indeed. His depiction of this era is superb and the wording paints the mural so well the reader is visualizing the entire surroundings. You are in Franklin County and watching the events, not reading them. This is a brilliant work and well worth the time to read it - and it won't take you long, as I just couldn't stop until it was finished. This is a slice of time in America that we can only read about and Matt Bondurant is able to give us this period of time and allows us to leave our current life and live within this one. Often people will ask why I read so many books, and I'll say that with a good book, I can be transported into the story, into a time that I never saw, or into a place that I'll never visit; this is one of those books. This not just a good book; I rarely give out 5 stars, but Matt Bondurant has earned all five of them with this potential classic.

Starkly beautiful novel.

The bootlegging industry is one I know very little about, so my choice to review Matt Bondurant's "The Wettest County in the World" was made with some caution. Will I find the subject at all interesting? I'm also a bit leery of historical fiction, as authors tend to stretch the past to fit their present purpose. What a thoroughly pleasant surprise. Told largely from the perspective of journalist Sherwood Anderson who investigates the lawlessness of Franklin County, Virginia and environs, the novel describes in riveting detail the grasping desperation of three of the author's ancestors during the Great Depression. From the opening pages describing the matter-of-fact deaths of much of the family to epidemic, to the brutal struggles between moonshiners, corrupt police and officials, and much of it held together by an unwritten but understood code of silence that kept the industry thriving in all its money and violence, author Bondurant very successfully manages several layers of meaning while providing a gripping narrative that is not for the faint-of-heart. On one hand, the novel is about the moonshine industry itself and goes into the details of the making, marketing, and often elaborate delivery of the stuff. On the other, "Wettest County" is about family -- the author's; each of the three main characters (Forrest, Howard, and Jack) has a distinct personality and together they describe different approaches in their dealings, both with and against each other. The novel is also about the financial and moral devastation of the Depression and what poverty will do to men who are desperate. Here also is something of a mystery and legal drama, as Sherwood Anderson tries to uncover crime and its underlying conspiracy. This is a violent novel and the writing is straightforward and never sentimental. Bondurant never gives in to romanticizing and what he's created is a narrative that is completely believable and thoroughly absorbing. While I greatly enjoyed the particulars of his family history, Bondurant seems to ask the reader what he/she would do given these difficult circumstances. The tale would make a wonderful movie. Highly recommended.

I Live Here In Franklin County

I love the history of this area in VA. My husband and I moved from L.A.,CA to Boones Mill,VA two years ago to retire and I found the book so interesting abt our new home town. Everytime a new character appeared, I would look up the name in the local phone directory and 99% of the time their relatives' names would be listed there.This book is fun to read and factual.

Excellent Novel That Brings the Era to Life

My first reaction to this novel was that the author, like so many PhD's, was writing to hear himself talk. The descriptors in the prelude seemed over-the-top and wordy. I put the book down for a day, and then read what other reviewers had to say about it. Their glowing reviews caused me to pause. I thought that perhaps I might have been too quick to judge the work and that I might have missed something in my haste. Had I expected a more biographical book in the tone of the McCourt brothers' work; had I expected something of a romantic period piece? Perhaps the author's use of his own surname for the main characters was one of the reasons I misjudged the book initially. Although it is based on a true story, and, if I am not mistaken, the author's family members, I thought it less distracting had the characters been given a different surname. While this is a small point, the author's and characters' identical surnames did cause me to view the book's story differently than I might otherwise have done. I returned to the beginning of the book (by this time, I had read about 50 pages) and started over. Much to my delight (the prelude excepted), I found the writing to be clear and crisp. Descriptions were realistic and vivid. Characters were identifiable and individualized and were not stereotyped. Emotion was evoked by the skillful use of phrasing and word images. Bondurant draws a portrait of an era and a locale that is compelling in its realism. The pre-Prohibition, Prohibition, and post-Prohibition eras and the lives of the moonshiners spring easily into the reader's mind. The work is gritty and draws the reader into the story. There is brutality and cruelty found in the pages, but there is also a gentleness in the characters' relationships to relatives or to those with whom there is a more personal involvement. I found myself wanting to continue reading and was not a happy camper when I had to stop to attend the demands of real life. I recommend this book to anyone who likes intelligently written, "realistic" fiction. Please allow yourself sufficient time to become immersed in the story - you won't be disappointed.

Death in the Afternoon

To dismiss the infamous Bondurant brothers as simply country bootleggers would be selling them short....and risking your life. They had carved a nice living as moonshiners in Franklin County, Virginia, but that is not even half of the story. Each played a role in the criminal success story due to very unique personalities; Jack was always angling to strike it rich through a big score, Howard was a haunted veteran of World War I who enjoyed drinking the hard stuff as much as marketing it and Forrest was a tough as they came - he had a deep neck scar to prove it - once walking nearly 12 miles in the snow to receive medical assistance for a slit throat. But when the trio refuses to pay "security" money to police, it leads to an even more wild ride in the turf wars where only the strongest could survive to fight another day, where the battles during the waning years of the Great Depression included shootings, knifings, beatings, shakedowns and brutal types of revenge that were fates worse than death for men. Author Matt Bondurant chronicles these turbulent times of his grandfather and two granduncles in this novel that is based on the true story of their lives and the ripping apart of the veil that covered the lawlessness through a 1935 conspiracy trial which took down many players, but found journalist Sherwood Anderson chasing the shadows of the brothers to get to the heart of the story while attempting to break the county code of silence found within this vicious game. Through dialogue and gripping scenes that are not for the faint of heart, Matt Bondurant brings to life an era where big city gangsters may have captured the national headlines, but these rural areas packed a gangland cruelty that was especially brutal. And that Matt Bondurant is talking about family makes this story even more compelling.