Gods of Howl Mountain

In his third novel (after River of Kings), critically acclaimed novelist Brown gazes unflinchingly at the Howl Mountain community of 1950s North Carolina, an unforgiving world of revivalists, moonshiners, family secrets, and deep-rooted grudges. Fiercely self-reliant Maybelline "Granny May" Docherty, who sits on her porch with a loaded shotgun in her lap, knows every creek bed and hollow as she searches out the medicinal herbs she uses to make potions and poultices for her neighbors. World War I took her husband, leaving her to struggle alone with baby Bonni. Living with her now is Bonni's son, Rory, a Korean War veteran suffering flashbacks and the loss of a leg. Rory works at the only thing he knows, running whiskey in a powerful Ford coupe that can outdistance revenuers, crooked sheriffs, and rival whiskey cars. But heartache still follows this little family. A terrible incident has left Bonni institutionalized and traumatized into silence, and Granny May wrestles with the full, heart-wrenching truth while never hesitating to mete out her own mountain justice.