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Saturday, November 25, 2017

Review: Prime Leaf: A Novel of the Kentucky Tobacco Wars

Prime Leaf: A Novel of the Kentucky Tobacco Wars Prime Leaf: A Novel of the Kentucky Tobacco Wars by Jack Wall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This Kentucky novel got a firm hold of me on a recent Kentucky trip. A family saga of tobacco farming and vigilante violence and price wars, Prime Leaf was written by a Georgia retiree who studied writing at Sewanee, the University of the South, and hence, the protagonist is briefly a student at Sewanee, albeit in the late 19th century. The prose is swift and matter-of-fact.
Hill Street Press, a fine Athens, Georgia press in business for too short a time, published Prime Leaf sometime after the author's death. It deserves to stay in print, and I recommend it to anyone interested in a compelling read about the agricultural populism and vigilantism of 100 years ago.

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