The Wettest County in the World: A Novel Based on a True Story

A gritty, gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder, this ‘engrossing’ (Entertainment Weekly’) novel is now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain, Tom Hardy, Shia Labeouf, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, and Mia Wasikowska.Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles, ‘Lawless ‘is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of ‘Winesburg, Ohio,’ was covering a story there he christened it the ‘wettest county in the world.’ Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads, piecing together the clues linking the brothers to ‘The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,’ and breaking open the silence that shrouds Franklin County. In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.