Matt Bondurant, a professor of creative writing at the University of Texas, Dallas, is the author of

Matt Bondurant at his Hollywood premiere

three novels. The Third Translation (2006), The Wettest County in the World (2009), and The Night Swimmer (2012). I have read only The Wettest County, and to do so I had to overcome my natural inclination to avoid novels promoted as “Based on a True Story.” But Bondurant had one hell of a true story to base his novel on. HIs family were active Kentucky moonshiners during Prohibition, and the Bondurant Boys were known as both smart business men and people you just didn’t want to mess with. My favorite moment in the story involved on of the Bondurants who, after having his throat slashed in a speakeasy parking lot, pinches the wound together and survives a several mile drive over country roads to the nearest hospital. These were tough people. Matt also manages to work in author Sherwood Anderson as a character, a man out of his depths in the Kentucky hill country and struggling to re-establish his fading career as a significant American author. (In this past year, Wettest County was turned into the film Lawless with an impressive cast including Gary Oldham, Shia LeBeouf, and Jessica Chastain, NIck Cave wrote the screenplay and John Hillcoat, maker of The Road and The Proposition, directed.

Scene from Lawless

The Night Swimmer racked up good reviews, including this particularly evocative one from Bookpage,