Matt Bondurant is the author of three novels, the most recent of which is The Night Swimmer. Lawless--previously published as The Wettest County in the World--was a New York Times Editors' Choice, and one of the San Francisco Chronicle's 50 Best Books of the Year. His first novel, The Third Translation, was an international bestseller, translated into fourteen languages worldwide. He currently teaches literature and writing in the Arts and Humanities graduate program at the University of Texas at Dallas.
"Bondurant endows this gritty story with all the puzzle-solving
satisfactions of a mystery. It's a gripping, relentless tale,
delivered in no-nonsense prose." -- Publishers Weekly (starred
review)
"Bondurant is a nimble writer, especially when it comes to
depicting gore and guts. His descriptions of the warped and wounded
(a man lying in a hospital bed with "skin blanched like boiled
meat; the bedding stained with a yellowish fluid" can leave a
reader queasy, but the liveliness of his writing makes it hard for
even the most lily-livered to look away.....Bondurant's prose is
lyrical.......who can deny the power of a narrative so deeply
rooted in childhood imaginings, when a mild and quiet grandfather
hung those brass knuckles on the wall?" -- New York Times Book
Review
"Bondurant tells a distinctively American story. The gritty,
suspenseful narrative gripped me and wouldn't let me go. It also
touched my heart in all the right ways. Matt Bondurant's writing is
as full of beauty as it is of verve and grit. Thank God it's legal
to write so well." -- Lee Martin, author of River of Heaven and The
Bright Forever
"Bondurant writes fiercely and passionately. Severe violence,
thrillingly rendered, pervades this book, which will remind readers
of hard-hitting Southern writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Larry
Brown. ....The story Bondurant has to tell is riveting, detailed
and historical. His knowledge of Southern culture is as deep as his
ancestors' knowledge of making whiskey. We are aware from the first
page that we are in the hands of a remarkable storyteller." -- San
Francisco Chronicle
"Brilliantly conceived, and so close to home, this novel proves
Matt Bondurant's burgeoning talent -- a book for thirsty American
readers to guzzle down, a book for all young American writers to
admire." -- Alan Cheuse, author of The Fires
"In his scintillating new novel, Matt Bondurant explores a crucial
period in the history of Virginia and of his family. His gorgeous,
precise prose brings to life an amazing cast of characters,
including Sherwood Anderson, and the often deadly battles of
Prohibition. The Wettest County in the World is a remarkably
compelling, highly intelligent, and deeply moving novel." -- Margot
Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street and Eva Moves the
Furniture
"Interweaving the bleak portraits of Walker Evans, the charged
landscapes of Annie Dillard, and the breakneck plotting of Cormac
McCarthy, Matt Bondurant mines his own family history to offer a
novel that's both a gritty, fast-paced tale of bootleggers and car
chases and a timeless hard-knock ballad, a myth fixed in the amber
of one small community's imagination. The Wettest County in the
World is a suspense story dashed to tintype smithereens, each one a
jewel." -- Elis Avery, author of The Teahouse Fire
This fictionalized tale of Depression-era bootlegging from Bondurant (The Third Translation) enlists the help of Winesburg, Ohio author Sherwood Anderson to investigate Bondurant family lore. In 1928, a pair of thieves accost Bondurant's real life great-uncle Forrest at his Franklin County, Va., restaurant. They're after a large cache of bootlegging money and end up cutting Forrest's throat. The story of his survival and his trek to a hospital 12 miles away has taken on mythical proportions by the time Sherwood Anderson arrives in Franklin County in 1934 to research a magazine piece on the area's prolific moonshiners. Soon after Anderson's arrival, two anonymous men appear at the same hospital, one with legs "meticulously shattered" from ankle to hip, the other one castrated, with the by-products of the deed deposited in a jar of moonshine. The arc of the story lies between the attack on Forrest and that on the two men. Bondurant endows his gritty story with all the puzzle-solving satisfactions of a mystery. It's a gripping, relentless tale, delivered in no-nonsense prose. (Oct.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
"Bondurant endows this gritty story with all the puzzle-solving
satisfactions of a mystery. It's a gripping, relentless tale,
delivered in no-nonsense prose." -- Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
"Bondurant is a nimble writer, especially when it comes to
depicting gore and guts. His descriptions of the warped and wounded
(a man lying in a hospital bed with "skin blanched like boiled
meat; the bedding stained with a yellowish fluid" can leave a
reader queasy, but the liveliness of his writing makes it hard for
even the most lily-livered to look away.....Bondurant's prose is
lyrical.......who can deny the power of a narrative so deeply
rooted in childhood imaginings, when a mild and quiet grandfather
hung those brass knuckles on the wall?" -- New York Times Book
Review
"Bondurant tells a distinctively American story. The gritty,
suspenseful narrative gripped me and wouldn't let me go. It also
touched my heart in all the right ways. Matt Bondurant's writing is
as full of beauty as it is of verve and grit. Thank God it's legal
to write so well." -- Lee Martin, author of River of Heaven
and The Bright Forever
"Bondurant writes fiercely and passionately. Severe violence,
thrillingly rendered, pervades this book, which will remind readers
of hard-hitting Southern writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Larry
Brown. ....The story Bondurant has to tell is riveting, detailed
and historical. His knowledge of Southern culture is as deep as his
ancestors' knowledge of making whiskey. We are aware from the first
page that we are in the hands of a remarkable storyteller." --
San Francisco Chronicle
"Brilliantly conceived, and so close to home, this novel proves
Matt Bondurant's burgeoning talent -- a book for thirsty American
readers to guzzle down, a book for all young American writers to
admire." -- Alan Cheuse, author of The Fires
"In his scintillating new novel, Matt Bondurant explores a crucial
period in the history of Virginia and of his family. His gorgeous,
precise prose brings to life an amazing cast of characters,
including Sherwood Anderson, and the often deadly battles of
Prohibition. The Wettest County in the World is a remarkably
compelling, highly intelligent, and deeply moving novel." -- Margot
Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street and Eva
Moves the Furniture
"Interweaving the bleak portraits of Walker Evans, the charged
landscapes of Annie Dillard, and the breakneck plotting of Cormac
McCarthy, Matt Bondurant mines his own family history to offer a
novel that's both a gritty, fast-paced tale of bootleggers and car
chases and a timeless hard-knock ballad, a myth fixed in the amber
of one small community's imagination. The Wettest County in the
World is a suspense story dashed to tintype smithereens, each
one a jewel." -- Elis Avery, author of The Teahouse Fire
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