Moonshine: A Life in Pursuit of White Liquor

This compelling work of Americana profiles Garland Bunting, “the most successful revenue agent in the history of a state that has always been enormously productive of moonshine,” which is North Carolina.

Written by longtime New Yorker contributor Alex Wilkinson, and originally published in 1985, Moonshine brings to life a remarkably loquacious and canny figure rooted in tensions as old as the United States: the taxes due on the production of alcohol. Around Bunting appear a host of figures, from other law enforcement figures and the men he has caught and prosecuted to his wife and the people at hunting dog trials who may have stumbled across stills hidden in the forests. 

Bunting’s voice is essential to this book, with a logic and a rhythm all its own as he describes his tactics for putting people at ease as well as describing the ebb and flow of moonshining as the local economy prospers and declines. Through Bunting Wilkinson’s prose illuminates small town and rural life in a particular corner of America.

No longer than it needs to be, with every word telling, Moonshine is a great read.