Bull Mountain (2015) by Brian Panowich

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Bull Mountain (2015)

by Brian Panowich

Dahlonega, Georgia

Georgia: 7/26

   Brian Panowich had the audacity to open his debut novel- a genre thriller/noir, with a quote from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.  I think I actually gasped when I heard it on the very decent Audiobook.  Of course, no serious author influenced by Cormac McCarthy would open their book with a quote from a Cormac McCarthy novel- it's ridiculous.  For a genre writer to do it, on the other hand, certainly telegraphs a literary level of ambition.  I'm not a huge detective fiction/regional noir guy outside of the Coen Brothers, but in the context of the 1,001 Novels project I love the detective fiction/noir titles and seek them out in Audiobook form.  

   To the author's credit there are some genuinely shocking passages that do, indeed, evoke some of Cormac McCarthy's roughest moments.  There's also some troubling content that seems positively retro by the "trigger warning" standards of contemporary authorial license to depict trauma in the context of genre fiction.  I can't really get into it without spoiling the major plot reveal, which is the only twist on a conventional shoot em up double cross type scenario involving a rural crime family which dominates the titular Bull Mountain, where they have evolved from moonshine to weed to meth over the course of three generations.  Along the way they have made common cause with a Jacksonville motorcycle gang with a sideline on what we would today call "ghost guns."  Enter a mysterious DEA agent with a dark secret, and you've got a book that won the International Thrillers Award for best debut.