Whiskey
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Whiskey burns pleasantly as it goes down, but has a lasting, powerful effect.
Brothers Andre and Smoker were raised in a cauldron of their parents’ failed marriage and appetite for destruction, and find themselves in the same straits as adults—navigating not only their own marriages, but also their parents’ frequent collision with the law and one another. The family lives in Electric City, Washington, just a few miles south of the Colville Indian Reservation. Fiercely loyal and just plain fierce, they’re bound by a series of darkly comedic and hauntingly violent events: domestic trouble; religious fanaticism; benders punctuated with pauses to dry out that never stick.
When a religious zealot takes off with Smoker’s daughter, there’s no question that his brother—who continues doggedly to try and put his life in order—will join him in an attempt to return her. Maybe the venture will break them both beyond repair or maybe it will redeem them. Or perhaps both.
Whiskey is the story of two brothers, their parents, and three wrecked marriages, a searching book about family life at its most distressed—about kinship, failure, enough liquor to get through it all, and ultimately a dark and hard-earned grace. With the gruff humor of Cormac McCarthy and a dash of the madcap irony of Charles Portis, and a strong, authentic literary voice all his own, Bruce Holbert traverses the harsh landscape of America’s northwestern border and finds a family unlike any you’ve met before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Holbert (Lonesome Animals) returns with a violent, gruesome, and beautiful tale that, despite its despondency, is perversely winning. The story is set in a hard-luck Washington town near the Grand Coulee Dam. Part Native American, Andre is a beloved math teacher and "minor tavern legend" known for his fierceness in bar brawls. His mother is a woman capable of putting "a year's living into a long weekend," as can his father (when he's not locked up). Andre's younger brother, Smoker, is a perennially broke, charming ladies' man. All are alcoholics, vulnerable and vicious, damaged and doing great damage to one another. The novel darts back and forth across three periods in the family's history. In the "Genesis" sections, which begin in 1981, Andre and Smoker fend for themselves in a dysfunctional household, and "Lamentations" describes the courtship and marriage of Andre and a fellow teacher. In "Exodus," Andre, his marriage breaking up, accompanies Smoker to retrieve the latter's daughter from a preacher's remote, cultish commune, picking up an impressive litany of injuries and a bear along the way. The violence in this rangy, brilliant narrative is often grotesque, but this excess is tempered by dry humor, wonderful dialogue, and dark wisdom.