I participate in the Historical
Fiction Book Lovers site on Facebook. I have discovered some real gems set in
the 1920s suggested by members of the group. A few clunkers, too. But one I did
see was "Hang the Moon" by Jeanette Wells. You may recognize her name
from her memoir, "The Glass Castle," in which she recounts her wild
family life and her success at transcending it. I recently watched the movie on
one of the streaming services. Woody Harrelson is very good as the father with
a million dreams that never pan out. It leaves a mark on Wells and her
siblings.
The setting of "Hang the
Moon" is one reason I chose the book. I'm writing a series of novels set
in post-war Colorado, the first in 1919 and the second in 1922. I read books
from that era to absorb the atmosphere but also the process of driving a Ford
Model T. The moonshine world of the South is fascinating and violent.
Prohibition brought new opportunities for those who lived in the hills. But
making whiskey was going on before 1920 due to the South's blue laws and other
restrictions on getting schnockered. That tradition continued after prohibition
was repealed due to the same Bible-Thumpers who proposed it in the first place.
Many of the first racers on the NASCAR circuit learned how to drive avoiding
revenooers on the twisty roads of the Appalachians. One of my early memories
was "Thunder Road" and Robert Mitchum hotrodding down winding roads
to get the hooch to market.
Wells has seen rural poverty
first-hand and puts that background to good use when she writes about growing
up in Prohibition America. It's a gritty historical novel. I ran into a couple
of slow stretches in the narrative and thought of quitting but it was a good
story so I kept on and glad I did.
In it, a young woman named
Sallie Kincaid bucks the odds and becomes the only woman rumrunner in Virginia
during Prohibition. Haven't read many books with this story line. It takes the
author a long time to get to the rumrunning. Sallie Kincaid likes fast cars.
She has a derring-do spirit. I would have liked to see more action during what
must have been a harrowing profession. She takes us along the first time the
drivers risk capture to take five cars filled with shine to Roanoke. An
excellent chase scene. There's also a showdown at a rural hospital between the
rumrunners and the thug sheriff brought in to stop it.
It took awhile to get a
fully-formed picture of Sallie. Her Aunt Mattie is rough on her but we don't
get a good look inside her to see her motivation. Why does Sallie stick around
her large small-town family when she has other options including marriage or
just moving to a new place to make a fresh start? I'm being grumpy, I know, but
the book left me wanting more. Cover art shows a young woman in a dress working
under a 1920s-era automobile. But the author doesn't get her under (and into) that
car for a couple hundred pages.
The novel really picks up its
tempo when Sallie takes over the family businesses and finds her inner
moonshiner. She's almost as ruthless as her daddy but we do see her conscience
at work throughout. There are some key revelations as the novel approaches the
end. It was a worthy read. I checked it out at the Libby site. I was pleasantly
surprised to find it there.
Making, transporting and
drinking whiskey were boys' clubs -- no girls allowed. That's what makes Sallie
Kincaid so special and so exciting. Her Hatfield/McCoy-style battles with the
gritty Bond brothers has a bigger impact when a mere slip of a girl threatens
the status quo. She finds new and interesting ways to wage war on the Bonds. A
few of them borrow tactics pioneered in the Great War. Tom, her friend who’s
been to war, melts down with shell-shock when the gunplay starts.
The Great War changed everything.
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