Gods of Howl Mountain
“The writing is strong and evocative, yielding a vivid picture whether he’s describing a forest or a car chase, and there’s plenty of action and intrigue…You’re in for a ride you won’t soon forget.”
Greensboro Triad (North Carolina)
Finalist for the 2018 Southern Book Prize for Fiction
In Gods of Howl Mountain, award-winning author Taylor Brown explores a world of folk healers, whiskey-runners, and dark family secrets in the high country of 1950s North Carolina.
Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood-a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted '40 Ford coupe. Between deliveries to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients, he lives with his formidable grandmother, evades federal agents, and stokes the wrath of a rival runner.
In the mill town at the foot of the mountains-a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing-Rory is bewitched by the mysterious daughter of a snake-handling preacher. His grandmother, Maybelline "Granny May" Docherty, opposes this match for her own reasons, believing that "some things are best left buried." A folk healer whose powers are rumored to rival those of a wood witch, she concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains while harboring an explosive secret about Rory's mother-the truth behind her long confinement in a mental hospital, during which time she has not spoken one word. When Rory's life is threatened, Granny must decide whether to reveal what she knows … or protect her only grandson from the past.
With gritty and atmospheric prose, Taylor Brown brings to life a perilous mountain and the family who rules it.
Praise