Review of THE WHISKEY REBELS (Brilliance Audio on CD 2008)By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, David Liss; read by Christopher Lane
Ah, the women circa 1789 are comely and the taverns inviting until someone asks you to pay the tab, but this is just the backdrop for a new nation trying to establish a financial system. THE WHISKEY REBELS casts Alexander Hamilton as a crafty man, weak in flesh and strong in financial manipulation, who eclipses saintly "progressive" Thomas Jefferson and the remote and sore-mouthed General Washington.
But the founding dads are not even the stars of the story. This rollicking tale is told in first-person sections by Captain Ethan Saunders, a spy for Washington during the revolution, now disgraced as a traitor, and Joan Maycott, a feisty housewife who is duped into going to the frontier (then Pittsburgh) and being set on a course of revenge aimed at wiping out baby country's financial system.
I won't spoil it for you. You already know the financial system survived to be wiped out two months ago. I did like Captain Saunders, who is quite the ironical ne'er-do-well, who at one point is approached by a financier's "ruffian" and advised that the financier "requests you 'eff' yourself." So polite. This made me want my own ruffian. Know of anyone?
Christopher Lane is one of my favorite readers. He differentiates the voices without being overwrought.
I love hearing about olden times, accurate or not, so long as I don't have to smell the people. David Liss takes special pains to describe many combinations of body odor. For this we can be most grateful. I will insist my ruffian bathe.
Star Lawrence owns the health humor site Health’s Ass at http://healthsass.blogspot.com. She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.
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