Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2014
250 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
South Carolina, 1932. One man's whiskey empire is on the verge of collapse following two shots from a 12-gauge.
Late one night at the end of a scorching summer, a phone call rouses Sheriff Furman Chambers out of bed. Two men have been shot dead on Highway 9 in front of the Hillside Inn, a one-time boardinghouse that is now just a front for Larthan Tull's liquor business. When Sheriff Chambers arrives to investigate, witnesses say a man named Mary Jane Hopewell walked into the tavern, dragged two of Tull's runners into the street, and laid them out with a shotgun. Sheriff Chambers's investigation leads him into the Bell village, where Mary Jane's family lives a quiet, hardscrabble life of working in the cotton mill. While the weary sheriff digs into the mystery and confronts the county's underground liquor operation, the whiskey baron himself is looking for vengeance. Mary Jane has gotten in the way of his business, and you don't do that to Larthan Tull and get away with it.
Hailed as a "grand new talent" (Bret Lott) and a "significant new voice in Southern fiction" (Ron Rash), Jon Sealy has written a haunting debut novel. With its unforgettable characters and evocative setting, The Whiskey Baron is a gripping drama about family ties and bad choices, about the folly of power and the limitations of the law.
"Starred Review. Told in pitch-perfect prose, with a rich command of time and place, Sealy's novel builds slowly but powerfully to a violent climax with deepening themes pertaining to blood ties, religion, community and American enterprise: Even the most upstanding citizens sell corn to Tull to make ends meet. Though it could use a better title, this is a near-flawless effort by a writer to watch." - Kirkus
"(An) atmospheric and top-of-the-line debut novel...a promising new voice." - Publishers Weekly
"An assured work of literary suspense... Sealy's finely drawn characters and evocative sense of place and time make this a memorable read." - Library Journal
"This impressive debut establishes Jon Sealy as a significant new voice in Southern fiction." - Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Cove
"Jon Sealy's The Whiskey Baron is a remarkable first novel. I couldn't put it down - I mean that - and found in its pages a voice sharp and true, a rendering of its time and place that has haunted me to this day, and especially a phenomenal sense of tension and pace that kept me on the edge of my seat. " - Bret Lott, author of Jewel and Dead Low Tide
"The Whiskey Baron is a simmering powerhouse of a novel. Like the corn liquor that drives it, The Whiskey Baron will burn you all the way down to your gut." - Wiley Cash, author of A Land More Kind Than Home
This information about The Whiskey Baron was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jon Sealy's fiction has appeared in The Sun, The Normal School, and PANK, among other places. A native of upstate South Carolina, he currently lives in Richmond, Virginia. This is his first novel.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
