Grandpa Snake made illegal moonshine whiskey in the Appalachian Mountains a century ago. His life was forged in a furnace fired hot with coal and shaped on the cold, hard anvil of Prohibition. Criminalizing whiskey promised to rid the country of sin, but instead it criminalized the innocent and the greedy.Grandpa dealt with the issues of his day including clear-cutting the virgin forests, construction of railroads, development of the coal mines, unionization of the mines and women's suffrage. They all changed America and West Virginia, but none were as important to Grandpa Snake as Prohibition. This novel is a fictionalized account of the life of the author's grandfather, based on stories handed down from a century ago. Some of the events are believed to be true, although the details are fiction. Some of the events are probably true, but the details are not. Some of the events are a complete fabrication. Great effort has been made to maximize the authenticity of this novel, but in the end, it is historical fiction.
About the Author: I grew up in Southern West Virginia during troubled times, when the coal mines were being mechanized and labor strife and strikes were common. Perhaps, that is why I feel sympathetic toward my grandfather and the area. My father and mother met when they were both working in grocery stores in Lester, the site of this story, just after Prohibition ended. After a dozen years, they managed to own a grocery store in a town nearby. My father was a kind-hearted soul and extended credit to the miners during one of their many strikes. They promised to pay him back, but his credit ran out before the strike ended. They never paid him back and he lost his business. We had to move in with a cousin and my father was forever after a broken man. He and my mother both worked at minimum-wage jobs, paid back all their debts, raised three children and eventually helped me through Engineering School. (I paid back my school loans in a few years.) During his moonshining period, my grandfather reputedly traveled extensively -- to avoid the Sheriff and escape prosecution for making illegal whiskey. (That is one reason the book skips some years.) Perhaps my own fondness for travel came from him. During my Chemical Engineering career, I often claimed that engineering was in my genes, saying that my grandfather was a biological reaction and distillation specialist. He could be said to be a fervent pioneer in Bio-chemical Engineering as he maintained a laboratory in his basement. West Virginia is again weathering difficult times. I made a trip back to Lester while writing this book. Although I saw no illegal stills and didn't run across any bootleggers, I also saw very few active coal mines. The coal fields were a shadow of their former glory, as was West Virginia.