Return to Thunder Road: The Story Behind the Legend

by Alex Gabbard

Return to Thunder Road is the real-life story of moonshining as a way of life in the southern Appalachians. Readers will ride with the moonshiners as they tell their stories from corn mash to car loads of "mountain dew". This is a powerful saga of an age gone by when making whiskey grew from a small operation to pass time to a massive effort to shut down the multi-million dollar trade with a manhunt that put most moonshiners out of business, and many behind bars. Alex Gabbard tells the story of moonshining in the mountains where he grew up and how it inflenced the rural south and fledgling stock car racing, giving the sport its most colorful and enduring characters.

237 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2002

Reviews

[Toby Brennen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book given to me, this time by my daughter as a Christmas gift, a bit different than something I'd normally pick-up but was an unexpected fun read. "Return to Thunder Road" The Story Behind the Legend" by Alex Gabbard is focused on identifying the source of Robert Mitchum's movie "Thunder Road." "Thunder Road" [the book, I haven't seen the movie but I am planning on it] is about the sociological, economic, and political foundations of making moonshine. Focused primarily between the late 1930's to the early 1960's in the southern Appalachian mountains. Packed with personal stories from both sides - the 'shiners' and the law. A majority of "Thunder Road" focuses on brewing in central/western North Carolina, linking running 'shine to the history of NASCAR. The second, smaller portion of the book is about the development of the illegal liquor trade around Lexington Kentucky. Setting the stage for the final section digging into the history of the movie "Thunder Road" and tracing what is believed to be the actual route driven.
Easy read though I almost stopped reading after 2 pages. There were so many spelling errors and typos I was wondering how the book ever got published. I expected some colloquialisms but this was insane. They didn't seem intentional but more like they were written on a pre-1990 word processor without spell check and nobody proofed it. Fortunately I stuck with the 11 page "intro" and things smoothied out after that.
If you like Southern history and fast cars [lots of car-speak that went over my head as I am not a 'car guy', i think you'd enjoy the book. [4/5]

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have watched the movie Thunder Road but did not realize it was telling a true story. I did not know the connection between moonshine running and NASCAR. Parts of this book were hilarious in the first hand accounts. It was a little disjointed but very informative.

[E. L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book if you know anything about the Moonshine area and era. If not you really need the movie either before or after reading the book. Better before I think.

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Return to Thunder Road by Alex Gabbard (Gabbard Publications 1992)(364.133) is a tale of the conjuction of two legendary passtimes in the rural southern U.S.: the manufacture and sale of illegal spirits, which is widely known as "moonshining," and the culture of the "shade-tree mechanic" who loved nothing better than to tinker with his big Detroit automobile to "hop it up" and make it run faster. This book is concerned with the one overriding problem faced by any illegal brewer: how do I physically transport the illegal whiskey to market? The answer was "in the fastest way possible."

The fastest way possible was often in stripped-down and hopped-up hot rods produced by the brewers and the often fearless drivers who were hired to transport the loads. The drivers often ran the liquor from the country to the city by tearing down tiny little two-lane pig-paths with the engine screaming wide open and government agents or local law enforcement right on their bumpers.

As has been written before, NASCAR, which is the south's down-home form of racing, is a direct outgrowth of these fearless drivers and their home-built hot rods. This little volume pays homage to each of these traditions. My rating: 7/10, finished 2011.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very disjointed book. It couldn't seem to decide whether it was describing the history of moonshining, direct stories from moonshiners, or some weird investigation of the movie thunder road. And at no point in the book does it tell you which type of book this will be, nor any decent transition between the forms.