Summary

The novel opens in North Carolina in the autumn of 1952. Rory Docherty—a bootleg whiskey delivery man and veteran of the Korean War—drives one night to a seedy neighborhood referred to as End-of-the-Road. He visits a bar there and delivers bootleg whiskey in exchange for cash. Chapter 2 shifts to a home positioned on the edge of town, next to the Appalachian Mountains. A large, old tree stands in front of the house. This is the house of Rory and his grandmother, Maybelline “Granny May” Docherty. Cooley Muldoon, son of a rival whiskey running family, arrives at Granny’s house accompanied by a young woman with whom he recently copulated. Granny is a renowned brewer of medicines, and they buy a tea from her to abort the young woman’s potential pregnancy. Cooley is rude and mean. Rory arrives, and Cooley comments on Rory...