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Summary
Summary
"[Panowich] pulls off [a] daunting undertaking with astounding success . . . The storytelling is mesmerizing, with virtually every chapter set in a different timeline and focused on a single character, but the sense of immediacy carries over into each era. And while the violence is shocking in its coldhearted brutality, it's as aesthetically choreographed as any ballet."--Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
"Brian Panowich stamps words on the page as if they've been blasted from the barrel of a shotgun, and as with a shotgun blast, no one is safe from the scattered fragments of history that impale the people of Bull Mountain."--Wiley Cash, New York Times -bestselling author of This Dark Road to Mercy
From a remarkable new voice in Southern fiction, a multigenerational saga of crime, family, and vengeance.
Clayton Burroughs comes from a long line of outlaws. For generations, the Burroughs clan has made its home on Bull Mountain in North Georgia, running shine, pot, and meth over six state lines, virtually untouched by the rule of law. To distance himself from his family's criminal empire, Clayton took the job of sheriff in a neighboring community to keep what peace he can. But when a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shows up at Clayton's office with a plan to shut down the mountain, his hidden agenda will pit brother against brother, test loyalties, and could lead Clayton down a path to self-destruction.
In a sweeping narrative spanning decades and told from alternating points of view, the novel brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of the mountain and its inhabitants: forbidding, loyal, gritty, and ruthless. A story of family--the lengths men will go to protect it, honor it, or in some cases destroy it-- Bull Mountain is an incredibly assured debut that heralds a major new talent in fiction.
Author Notes
Brian Panowich was a touring musician for twelve years before settling in East Georgia with his family. He now works full-time as a firefighter. Bull Mountain is his first novel.
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Hillbilly noir goes literary in Panowich's debut, which is part crime fiction and part family saga. As an outcast from his family, Sheriff Clayton Burroughs knows "The world is a broken place sometimes." Above northern Georgia's Waymore Valley, where Clayton patrols, generations of Burroughses have ruled Bull Mountain, keeping the family whole with moonshine, then marijuana, and now meth. Bull Mountain is a kingdom, its ruler the sheriff's brother Halford, clad in his own "warped sense of honor." The uneasy truce between Clayton and Hal fractures when Special Agent Simon Holly of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms arrives. Holly wants Clayton to persuade Hal to rat out his connection to a Jacksonville motorcycle gang, soldiers for a gun-running, meth-chemical supplier masquerading as a reputable businessman. In return, Hal won't be prosecuted. Thus unfolds a Shakespearean tragedy, a bloody family implosion. In the fast-moving narrative, shifting from Burroughs to Burroughs over the past half-century, Panowich chronicles murders, hijackings, and gory beat-downs. Haunted by family sins, Clayton once lived in the bottle, which was creating "a fine layer of rust slowly decaying and dissolving his marriage." Clayton's wife, Kate, steel-hearted and loyal, declares "I will not let some copdrag you down a hole you can't climb out of to help a man who doesn't want or deserve your help." A one-time Burroughs enforcer, Val, "a hulk of a man," reminds Clayton, "It was your grandfather let loose the demons on this mountain." However, there's a dark secret (a twist handled nicely by Panowich) that pulls Hal, sawed-off shotgun in hand, down from Bull Mountain. Ever true to his theme, Panowich then moves to a bloody, and believable, reconciliation. Panowich deftly delves into "something deeper than bone" between fathers and sons, between the land and its people. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The opening chapters of this dazzling novel can give the impression that we're in hillbilly heaven, rollin' smokes and chawin' plugs and finding it hilarious when a dim-witted deputy fills a cop car with Styrofoam peanuts. Keep reading. The wily author uses this soft opening to introduce a powerful retelling of the Cain and Abel story. Halford Burroughs, mean as a snake, is running the family's moon-and-meth business in the Georgia mountains. Brother Clayton has outraged everybody by becoming sheriff of a little town in the valley. One day a most likable federal agent turns up in Clayton's office with a plan to end the poisonous enterprise and save the family, and the proper narrative begins. Panowich tells his story in lengthy, nicely worked chapters reminiscent of John Steinbeck, who did his own brother-versus-brother story in East of Eden. Both write in a flowing, textured, understated style that is such a pleasure to read we don't realize we're being set up for a series of uppercuts. They come in revelations accompanied by gunfire. Read and recommend to anyone who follows country noir or savors delicious prose.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2015 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The Burroughs family has ruled the drug trade on Georgia's Bull Mountain for over 70 years. Bad blood between brothers has been a constant through three generations, with the current warfare playing out between Sheriff Clayton Burroughs and the family business head, Halford Burroughs. But the arrival of federal agent Simon Holly sparks the simmering hatred into a conflagration from which no one emerges unscathed. Sociopaths, manipulators, and pathological liars abound, with the roads that led them each to their own brand of evil well developed. The author delivers characters with depth, a lushly described setting, and an intergenerational battle between good and evil. After many twists and turns, the story ends with a welcome surprise. -VERDICT Debut novelist Panowich vividly details the depravity that is part of the meth business. His book will appeal to readers of Wiley Cash, Ron Rash, and -Daniel -Woodrell for the way in which it brings the landscape and culture of rural Appalachia to life. [See Prepub Alert, 2/2/15.]-Sharon Mensing, Emerald Mountain Sch., Steamboat Springs, CO © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.