Byron Aldridge, heir to a timber empire, returns from the First World War a changed man and finds refuge as a company policeman in a backwoods Louisiana sawmill. Soon his younger brother Randolph tracks him down, assuming charge of the mill in the hope of rescuing his former idol. But as the brothers try to understand each other and their wives contend with their own hopes and fears, it is Randolph who starts a feud with the Sicilians who control the whisky and girls, and the future grows fearsome for them all.
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Reviews
So firmly located and vividly realised that you can almost smell the Louisiana swampwater ... a gripping, action-packed tale, but also a notably intelligent one
Astonishingly powerful ... brilliantly written and the characters in their mire are superbly realised
An extraordinary novel, one of the best I've read in years
I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Gautreaux captures the fetid atmosphere of a frontier society poised to join the modern world with great skill, each sentence polished to perfection
Near-perfect ... untouchably good