Lawless
Originally Published as The Wettest County in the World

Quotes

“Bondurant is a nimble writer…The liveliness of his writer makes it hard for event he most lily-livered to look away…Bondurant’s prose is lyrical.”

“Part family history, part fiction, Matt Bondurant’s somber, engrossing novel, [Lawless], patches together the legend of his paternal grandfather and uncles, a fearsome trio of bootleggers in rural Prohibition-era Virginia. He’s wonderful at evoking historical atmosphere—the elaborate stills camouflaged in the woods, the music, the drunken gatherings that explode into shattering violence.”

“Descriptively gritty and emotionally resonant, novelist Bondurant dramatically projects the poverty and danger at the heart of the old-time bootlegging life.”

“Bondurant writes fiercely and passionately…We are aware from the first page that we are in the hands of a remarkable storyteller.”

“Bondurant endows his gritty story with all the puzzle-solving satisfactions of a mystery. It’s a gripping, relentless tale, delivered in no-nonsense prose.”

“Pull up a chair and settle in for this fascinating story…This work of fiction is beautifully crafted and eloquently performed…Erik Steele masterfully navigates vocal shifts and offers a genuine appreciation for the prose, which is vividly violent and sparklingly descriptive by turns.”

“A cracklingly good novel, with plenty of action and local color.”

“Whether fiction or biography, it succeeds in delivering a pungent slice of Americana, a portrait of a place and an era and a way of life that is part romantic, part viscerally violent, part metaphorical, all wrapped in a kind of rural poetry.”