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Deep South Books
Whiskey Man
Raines's coming-of-age novel, set in Depression-era Alabama, combines romance and tragedy to evoke a time and place distant in memory but alive in the great tradition of American storytelling. In 1932 in Milo, Alabama, Prohibition was on, the depression was on, Franklin D. Roosevelt was riding his campaign train across America, and Bluenose Trogdon--a man who had a real calling for making whiskey just like his daddy before him--had devoted customers as far away as Birmingham.
One of the people he was on good terms with was Brant Laster, just home from The University of Alabama and the first of his family to graduate. For Brant it was a time to renew ties of love and friendship--with his kind, upright father, who had a suitable Scripture to go with every sale he made at his general store; with Bluenose; and with Brant's girl, slender, pale-haired Blake King. Blake--in her own view liberated by her college years in Atlanta, though in Brant's eyes corrupted by the men she met there--stirs him to the thought that "every man is his own Iago." But it is Bluenose--boozy, profane, lustful, wise, comic, racked by passion for the wife who shuns him--whose inevitable fate finally sets Brant on his journey into the world.
One of the people he was on good terms with was Brant Laster, just home from The University of Alabama and the first of his family to graduate. For Brant it was a time to renew ties of love and friendship--with his kind, upright father, who had a suitable Scripture to go with every sale he made at his general store; with Bluenose; and with Brant's girl, slender, pale-haired Blake King. Blake--in her own view liberated by her college years in Atlanta, though in Brant's eyes corrupted by the men she met there--stirs him to the thought that "every man is his own Iago." But it is Bluenose--boozy, profane, lustful, wise, comic, racked by passion for the wife who shuns him--whose inevitable fate finally sets Brant on his journey into the world.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 10, 2019
This is the only novel by journalist Howell Raines. Mr. Raines was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing while at the New York Times and is author of My Soul is Rested, which is one of the definitive books on the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. (He is a 1964 graduate of my alma matter which is why I was interested in reading the book).
The descriptions of rural North Alabama and its people in the early 1930's are very good.
The descriptions of rural North Alabama and its people in the early 1930's are very good.
April 17, 2020
What a cast of characters. Flawed, corrupt, probably bipolar, comical, and livin the hard life. Having Southern roots, I’m glad my Grand Daddy went north! Lol.
March 6, 2023
Nice surprise for an unknown author from Alabama who later ended up as editor for The New York Times. Reminded me of William Faulkner.
January 18, 2024
A pretty good story that left me hanging. I want to like Brant but find him a major jerk.
April 14, 2023
A coming of age novel during the early American Depression set in the hill country of northwest Alabama. Well done featuring numerous colorful characters focusing on a moonshiner, Bluenose Trogdon. The protagonist, a recent college grad, displays endless confusion and conflicted loyalties, toward Bluenose, his girlfriend, the law and community. He seems always angry, and I am never sure why. The main gripe I have is that the book does not end well. It is easy to start a story; it is very hard to end it well. I do not mean sad or catastrophic, but rather there is no resolution. The main character rides off into the sunset taking the story with him. One is left scratching his head. Very unsatisfying.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews