Bull Mountain

Headline: Brian Panowich’s debut novel is a jaw-dropping (yes, my jaw really did drop multiple times!) multi-generational family saga that feels like Southern “grit lit”, but reads like a thriller. It’s one of my favorite books of the summer and is a contender for one of favorite books of 2015. Major Themes: Criminal dynasties, drugs, violence, law enforcement, loyalty, family What I Loved: - The first chapter blew my mind! My jaw was already on the floor and what did Panowich do? He made it drop again. - The story is told from various perspectives and jumps around in time, very much reminding me of the structure of Sara Taylor’s The Shore. Thanks to Sara Taylor, I knew what to do this time around and immediately started taking notes on the characters and their relationships! But, Bull Mountain‘s structure is not nearly as complicated as The Shore‘s and I ended up not needing most of my notes. I loved how this structure enabled Panowich to slowly reveal the true nature of things. - The Burroughs family makes their living through crime (the particular crime changes over generations) and reminded me of the Knox family in Natchez Burning (both families have one member in law enforcement). They’re like a redneck, mountain version of the Mafia and you do not mess with them if you value your life. - Once you get to a certain point in the story, this is not a book you can easily put down. The action really picks up in the second half and I stayed up way past my bedtime finishing the final quarter in one night. - I’d be remiss not to mention Bull Mountain‘s level of violence. If you can’t handle horrifying scenes, sometimes involving children, then this book isn’t for you. But, contrary to some other books I’ve read, the violence is integral to the story and serves a purpose (at least from the characters’ perspectives). Bull Mountain does not feel like a novel chock full of violence just for the shock value. What I Didn’t Like: Nothing. This book is fantastic! A Defining Quote: “There is a subtle symbiotic relationship between the land up here and the people who call it home that folks like yourself never seem to fully understand, no matter how many files you read, or training scenarios you run. It’s not your fault, you’re just not from here. It goes way beyond simple pride or honor. Pride is a brand-new red bike or a better-paying job. Up here it’s something deeper than bone. It’s not something that they earned or had to fight to get. They were born into it, and the fight comes on real hard when someone threatens to take it away. It’s an integral part of who they are – who we are.” Good for People Who Like: Multi-generational family sagas, “Grit Lit”, Southern Gothic fiction, dark stories, mind games, page turners. Check out my blog, Sarah's Book Shelves, for more reviews.

With Bull Mountain, Brian Panowich has given us a sprawling, multigenerational crime saga. A hillbilly The Godfather. You know what you’re in for when you see the family tree. Country noir novels should have family trees like fantasy novels have maps. Bull Mountain starts with one fratricide. It won’t be the last. The Burroughs are kings of Bull Mountain. From moonshine to marijuana to meth, Bull Mountain has been home to a Burroughs led criminal enterprise for the last century. The narrative constantly jumps back and forth in time among family members. The chronology and POV are clearly marked, thankfully. On Bull Mountain, “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” After opening with Riley and Cooper Burroughs, the narrative is mostly concerned with Cooper’s son Gareth setting up the current iteration of the Burroughs empire and the current day conflict between his sons Halford, scion to the Burroughs empire, and Clayton, the white sheep of the family and sheriff of McFalls County. It says something about the perspective of the locals that they are willing to elect a member of a notorious crime family as sheriff. Clayton isn’t dirty, but with just two deputies, he also isn’t in any sort of position to do anything about a brother who seriously outmans and outguns him. But then ATF Special Agent Simon Holly shows up to kick to the hornets’ nest . . . With plenty of blood and buckshot and more than one carefully plotted, unexpected switchback in the story, what follows is one heck of a crime novel. Which is about as close to a criticism as I’ll get. Bull Mountain sits as firmly in the general crime camp as in the country noir camp (the country noir being, in my view, a very special type of crime drama). The setting and subject matter are pure country noir, but the plot shares as much or more in common with Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and A.K. Alexander’s The Cartel as with Ron Rash’s One Foot in Eden and Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. Country noir sits comfortably at the center of the overlap between pulp and literary—Bull Mountain is well on the pulp side. (Which isn’t itself a criticism. Those terms are value-neutral.) It’s a dang enjoyable read but doesn’t quite make it into my top tier of country noir works. The good news is that the sequel, Like Lions, is even better. One nifty thing Panowich does, at least in the paperback, is provide a soundtrack for Bull Mountain and a list of books to read next. Everything on both lists is in my wheelhouse, and I am pleased to see Panowich recognize that “there is not much difference between the two art forms.”

When I look at a book I decide whether or not to read it based on if it sounds interesting. This book popped up on Amazon a while back as a suggestion based on another book I had looked at. I kept it in my wishlist for a while and finally I bought it and it arrived at my house on May 26. I finished it on May 29th. Other reviewers mentioned words like literary prose, and other complicated terms describing the writing. I cant honestly say how the prose was but I know if a book is good, I'll read it, and this one was fantastic. Brian Panowich wrote a great book and I couldn't put it down. Basically the book centers around a family of men that build a family outlaw enterprise based around first moonshine, then marijuana, then crystal meth and guns. The book chronicles the family history through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards, then near the end after you have learned the back story of all the characters you move to the present (which is 2015). The 2 remaining members of "The Family" don't see eye to eye as the younger of the 2 is a county sheriff and the other what some would refer to as a redneck kingpin. The sheriff is torn between his love for his wife and her wishes to leave his brother alone and at the same time the sheriff is also dealing with the possibility of trying to get his brother to get out of the game. Its only complicated even further by a sly ATF agent who put the sheriff and his wife at a crossroads. All this leads to a series of twists and turns I truly didn't see coming and the ending is worth the read alone. The book reads like a great movie and the plot is very interesting and made for a page turner. In my head as I read it I imagined it all as a great movie, and it no doubt had to do with such a descriptive writing style. If your looking for an interesting tale of crime, excitement, betrayal, justice, and the undying love of a wife for her husband, then this book is a fantastic read that is no doubt worth your time. I finished it in 4 days time reading several chapters at a sitting, and I want more from Bull Mountain and from Brian Panowich.

Everything would've been different if Cooper Burroughs hadn't shot his brother Riley to death. The Burroughs family owns Bull Mountain, claimed two generations back to make moonshine. But moonshine is no longer in demand, and Riley wants to sell timber to a lumber company. The income would be more than the family could ever make, and nobody would have to worry about the law. Cooper disagrees. Hence, the first killing in the book. Gareth, who witnessed the shooting of his uncle, becomes head of the family and sires three sons. Two stay in the family business, and one becomes the county sheriff. One brother is shot by a federal agent, leading to more bad blood between the two remaining brothers, especially since the family switched from moonshine to weed and later meth. Things pick up when the Bull Mountain boys make a deal with a Florida motorcycle gang backed by a "respectable" businessman. In the meantime, a federal agent with a secret agenda makes a deal with the sheriff, and that's when the "fun" really begins. I had trouble with this book. Chapters switched from year to year and between POVs. I couldn't keep up, and a lot of annoying rereading ensued. It's a violent story, and the protagonist isn't always a good guy. This raw, bloody, gritty, sordid novel does a good job of detailing a life I couldn't imagine living. It reminded me of Tobacco Road if that's a clue. I don't generally shy away from gritty reads, but this one was almost too much.

The author offers a frightening depiction of pure evil as personified by the Burroughs family of Bull Mountain, Georgia. The story shows how difficult it is for a person born in this environment to escape the snares of crime and evil as witnessed in the struggles of Clayton Burroughs, a law enforcemnt officer who finds himself in direct opposition of his family and must make difficult decisions. The novel is rich in its multi dimensions and the shifts in the setting provide ample analysis for the way things shape up to be. Surprise ending which may or may not satisfy the reader , but a very good read.

This was a fantastic novel that drew me in and kept me up all night. It’s sense of pacing and history and character development is simply brilliant. Panowich did a brilliant job of creating a whole fictional world that also made you feel as if you-the reader-were right there with them. Each of the characters are developed distinctly and realistically and you feel like you know them. You see their trajectory even if you don’t know the details that will emerge. The power of culture, inter-generational familial relations and the usually insurmountable mimetic power of violence and cruelty doing their job on people’s lives for generations is perfectly and tragically portrayed. The author has done a brilliant job of telling an extraordinary story of mostly bad men doing terrible things. Yet, something about it ALMOST makes you want to root for them as they seek to preserve a certain way of life that is both cruel, yet clear. Brian Panowich tells a helluva story. I want to see an HBO series starring the Burroughs because it’d be The Wire+The Sopranos, with a touch of Deliverance and Justified, giving “Hillbilly noir” the place and sophisticated presentation it deserves-via Brian Panowich-that it deserves!

I was uncertain about this book when I first started reading it. But the more I read it the better it got . I love the way the author weaved the story and the characters together. The ending was definitely a surprise ending. Just around good read.

I really enjoyed this book. The writing is crisp and competent with great characters (some of them very unlikeable but intriguing) and a rollicking interesting plot. B.P. handles the jumps in chronology and flashback chapters adroitly and I always knew exactly how these trips into the past related to the main plot line. Ive read too many books where authors think it is ok to confuse the heck out of readers or simply do not have the skill to manage these complexities. Hope B.P. writes more and follows up on this mountain genre. Bull mountain and its custodians felt very real to me and would not mind going back there.. Many thanks to the author as the older I get the harder it seems to be to find toothsome well told stories that interest me.