Publishers Weekly
★ 01/02/2023
Walls’s breathtaking latest (after The Silver Star) traces the trajectory of two feuding Virginia families and a woman who rises to the top of a bootlegging empire. For more than 50 years, bad blood has permeated relations between the bootlegging Kincaid family and the Bond brothers, starting with the Kincaids’ questionable acquisition of 88 acres from the Bonds. Sallie Kincaid’s enigmatic father, “the Duke,” controls an Emporium general store, warehouse, lumber mill, hauling company, and rental properties, and after a string of unexpected deaths in the family, Sallie takes charge of the family business during the Prohibition years. As “Queen of the Kincaid Rumrunners,” Sally comes to oversee a profitable business that amplifies the backwoods dispute into a full-fledged violent war with the Bonds, who avenge the Kincaids’ land grab with a calamitous act of escalation, entangling both families and exposing scandalous secrets. The thrilling plot culminates in bombshell revelations and massive conflagrations, and through it all Sallie makes for an indelible heroine as she fights for her life and livelihood. This is a stunner. Agent: Margaret Riley King and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Hang the Moon
"A wild ride through prohibition-era Virginia with a scrappy heroine at the wheel." —People
"A rip-roaring, action-packed novel set during prohibition filled with head-spinning plot twists and enough dead bodies, doomed romances, and sudden betrayals to make you wonder if George R.R. Martin had decided to ditch fantasy for Southern Gothic." —The New York Times
"A propulsive read. Hang the Moon goes down easy... like the forbidden whisky that defines the life of Sallie Kincaid." —Associated Press
"A rollicking tale set in Prohibition-era Virginia with hairpin twists and turns of its plot. Walls has spun another rich story." —The Washington Post
"Wild, smart, energetic. Hang the Moon succeeds in seamlessness, its narrative of Roaring '20s country life, roller-coastering along." —Los Angeles Times
“You’ll fall in love with Sallie [Kincaid] on the very first page and keep rooting for her all the way through to the last.” —Good Housekeeping
“Brilliant and effervescent. Walls has written a stunning and compelling tale.” —NPR.org
“Jeannette Walls is a force to be reckoned with... She has indisputably positioned herself as a writer of great worth, and any work of hers is one to be appreciated.” —LitHub
Praise for Hang the Moon
"A wild ride through prohibition-era Virginia with a scrappy heroine at the wheel." —People
"A rip-roaring, action-packed novel set during prohibition filled with head-spinning plot twists and enough dead bodies, doomed romances, and sudden betrayals to make you wonder if George R.R. Martin had decided to ditch fantasy for Southern Gothic." —The New York Times
"A propulsive read. Hang the Moon goes down easy... like the forbidden whisky that defines the life of Sallie Kincaid." —Associated Press
"A rollicking tale set in Prohibition-era Virginia with hairpin twists and turns of its plot. Walls has spun another rich story." —The Washington Post
"Wild, smart, energetic. Hang the Moon succeeds in seamlessness, its narrative of Roaring '20s country life, roller-coastering along." —Los Angeles Times
“You’ll fall in love with Sallie [Kincaid] on the very first page and keep rooting for her all the way through to the last.” —Good Housekeeping
“Brilliant and effervescent. Walls has written a stunning and compelling tale.” —NPR.org
“Jeannette Walls is a force to be reckoned with... She has indisputably positioned herself as a writer of great worth, and any work of hers is one to be appreciated.” —LitHub
Library Journal - Audio
★ 06/10/2024
The fortunes of a powerful family rise and fall through internecine struggles for dominance and Prohibition-era politics. When Duke Kincaid's third wife dies, he summons his second daughter back to Claiborne County, VA, where she takes the reins of the family's bootlegging operation. With narration as smooth and singular as Claiborne County moonshine, Walls (The Glass Castle; The Silver Star), takes listeners through Sallie Kincaid's internal evolution through the tumultuous years after her homecoming. In Sallie, Walls creates a gutsy, wounded young woman with a reputation to grow into—the Kincaid name is a powerful one—and the determination to prove herself at a time when women had barely won the vote. Walls's fifth self-narrated audiobook and third novel playfully merges historical inspiration, a juicy story, and a natural-sounding country twang that fits the Rum Runner Queen to a (Model) T. With high-octane turf wars and high drama family secrets, the plot can occasionally strain credulity, but listeners prepared to go along for the ride are in for a good time. VERDICT A recommended pick for all libraries, given the author's popularity. Detailed rendering of the Jim Crow South and a multigenerational bootlegger operation may attract additional listeners.—Lauren Kage
APRIL 2023 - AudioFile
As inspired as this novel is by family lore, it's understandable that bestselling memoirist Jeanette Walls would want to narrate her story of derring-do during Prohibition. In it, we meet Sallie, daughter of the county's "Duke," whose extraordinary personal arc takes her from a poverty-stricken childhood in exile to living in "the big house" and running the family's moonshine business. Along the way, the challenges and excitement are as heartfelt and thrilling as a Shakespeare drama. Walls's warm voice and gentle twang sound the right note for a story that is set in rural Virginia. While the lack of vocal differentiation among characters flattens the audio experience, the author's attentive pacing and emotional engagement help keep listeners engaged with this action-packed tale. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-01-12
Historical fiction concerning the intricate battles over succession within the family that controls a poor rural county in post–World War I Virginia.
Duke Kincaid owns most of Claiborne County, both financially and politically. A charming, ruthless autocrat, feared yet beloved, he has three acknowledged children by three different wives (not to mention unacknowledged offspring). Shortly after his fourth marriage, the Duke dies unexpectedly. Although pragmatic, street-smart middle child Sallie is his intellectual and emotional heir, the Duke leaves his estate to her emotionally oversensitive half brother, Eddie, because he’s the only boy. Seventeen-year-old Sallie is devoted to Eddie, who's 13, but after he commits suicide she's torn by conflicting loyalties to her weak but lovable stepmother; her father’s scheming but able sister; and her older half sister, Mary, who's next in line to inherit the Kincaid empire but has not lived in Claiborne Country since her parents divorced. Family intrigue plays out against the backdrop of 1920s Claiborne County, where racism is a given, Prohibition is the law, and bootlegging is the main source of income for Blacks and Whites. Staunch prohibitionist Mary goes to war against the bootleggers using an enforcer who employs extreme violence. Sallie wants to support her sister but sympathizes with the bootleggers—her neighbors and tenants—and recognizes that the family's finances depend on trading whiskey. Defining what is moral becomes complicated for Sallie. So does defining family. Tough and independent, Sallie refuses to let womanhood limit her ambitions as she earns the nickname Queen of the Kincaid Rumrunners. History buffs will enjoy the many hints Walls sprinkles to show that Tudor England is her novel’s template (the Duke’s marriage to his brother’s widow; his banished daughter, Mary, and short-lived heir, Edward; the Kincaids’ counselor Cecil, etc.). Television buffs will smile at the Kincaids’ resemblance to the Roys of Succession.
A rollicking soap opera that keeps the pages turning with a surfeit of births, deaths, and surprising plot reveals.
