Whiskey Sunrise by Missouri Vaun

Whiskey Sunrise
by Missouri Vaun
Pages: 240 pages
Date: February 16 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: N/A

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: February 26 to 29 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books in return for a fair review.*

This is the first book that I have read written by this author.

Before I get into the normal series of ‘this is what the book is about/this is what I think/etc’ comments, I need to tackle one specific issue head on immediately. Actually, looking at the description, two specific issues.

Nature of the book I was reading - I’m not sure if it’s something that I thought I saw in the book description, something I saw elsewhere, or just the book cover, but I got the wrong impression going into this book. And that impression was that the book involved two women who end up falling for each other. All good there, which was a solid impression that is not changed by reading the book. No, it was the part where I had this vague idea that one of them, Royal to be exact, was living as a man. As in, calling herself a man. She isn’t. She’s living as a woman. Who happens to have short hair, drive fast, drink, chase women, and wear men’s clothing. But there’s no mistaking the issue – she’s doing this as a woman doing these things that defy convention. Not as a woman pretending to be a man (this leads to another issue that I’ll either break out here or elsewhere).

Not a deal breaker or anything like that. I had just confused myself for some reason. In the end, this is one of the few books that I can outright, without any deep thinking on my part (or any need for anything but surface thinking) just call a butch/femme pairing. Since Royal is living in the look of a 1940s butch woman (she’s just 1 year early), at least based on nonfiction I’ve read about lesbian history. With Lovey Porter, the other woman in the book, living the part of the femme.

I don’t wish to go to deep here, but I’ll continue this one extra inch. The stereotypical butch of the time would wear men’s clothing, which may or may not have a female cut – depends on if they can get that type of clothing (a brief mention is made that Royal’s clothing has a male cut to them). Specifically, in the 1940s, (yes I know this is 1939) that would involve some kind of suit and top hat. I do not recall mention of Royal having a hat (though there is/was mention of hooks for men to hang their hats on), but otherwise the clothing she wore would be typical for men of her region.

I’ll add one last historical note before moving on – while Royal is defying convention in 1939 rural Georgia by dressing as a man, if this book had been set one or two years later, in a city, then she’d have had a lot of company. It was a great era for women to be able to openly wear pants and strut around – maybe not strut, but it’s easier to go off to work in factories in pants.

Book Description - first off, it’s both somewhat inaccurate and, oddly given that, gives too much information. I do not wish to go too deep here. There are more examples but I’ll just lift one from the description: ‘The back roads of Georgia had been perfect for the dissemination of the much sought after illegal elixir until the local Baptist minister, Abraham Porter, decided to make prohibition his mission, and Royal the target of his evangelical wrath.’ - (1) moonshine, wasn’t actually specifically illegal. There’s a scene where this came up. It was the part where the people running moonshine didn’t want to pay tax on it. Moonshine in and of itself wasn’t illegal; it was running it without paying tax on it that was illegal. (2) Abraham Porter? That is not his name. Lovey, Reverend Abraham’s daughter, married a fellow with the last name of Porter. She goes around town telling everyone that she’s Lovey Porter. That does not suddenly make her father Abraham Porter. No, he is Reverend Abraham Edwards. Oddly, that isn’t what I had meant to focus on there; I just noticed the wrong name before I could get to what I wanted to get to. Edwards wasn’t directly targeting Royal – he was targeting the Duval family as moonshiners.

‘Lovey Porter, Abraham’s daughter, is the living embodiment of chaste beauty,’ – hmms. Calling a woman who has been married the ‘living embodiment of chaste’ seems wrong on so many levels. Chaste? Really?

Setting
I normally leave this to second or third in the section rotation, but I figure I need to leap onto this immediately. The year is 1939; the place is a rural town nearish to Atlanta Georgia. The town is located in Dawson County (and I only recall that part because a guy named Joe Dawson was courting Lovey Porter).

There’s a nice good ‘backwoods’ vibe to everything. There’s a vaguely magical flavor to everything, and no I don’t mean actual magic or that there’s fantasy involved. Just there’s a certain disconnect, at times, from reality. While at the same time, reality has a tendency to meanly reach in and make everything bloody. I’m being purposely vague.

Characters
There are more than two characters that inhabit this book, though only two have their points of view expressed.

Lovey Porter: Lovey grew up in the locality this story takes place, but she went away, briefly, to get a college education, and then moved to Chicago with her husband. Husband died in 1938. Lovey returned to live in her father’s house. She’s trying to figure out how to make her way in the world, feeling constrained and suffocating from convention – though she’s good at putting on the good/polite/dutiful daughter mask.
Connected people: Reverend Abraham Edwards (father to Lovey); Cal? (person who comes by occasionally to clean); various church members who occasionally thrust their way into the story. Briefly. Joe Dawson (tall, well-muscled fella courting Lovey).


Royal Duval - a woman who loves to wear men’s clothing, drink, chase women, and drive fast cars, Royal works as something of a moonshine delivery driver – which occasionally involves driving fast and getting shot at.
Connected people: Duke Duval (current head of the moonshining family, though he’s on his last legs, so to speak); Wade Duval (son to Duke, uncle to Royal, and a mean asshole); Ned Duval (son of Wade’s; best friend to Royal); Royal Duval’s mother (I forget if her first name is given); Grace (friend of Royal’s who gets into trouble and ‘must be saved’; both Grace (and her family) and Cal represent the ‘colored’ part of rural Georgia).

Plot
The book opens with Lovey feeling trapped in her house, so she goes for a late night stroll. On the roads. No one has driven past her father’s house in a good long while, so she figures its safe enough to walk out there. Until she finds out it isn’t.

Royal is testing a new potential route to drive on her moonshine deliveries, one with a newly graded/whatevered road. She roars up, slowing only so she can take a turn and . . . spots a figure in the roadway. She attempts to avoid running over the figure and ends up rolling her car.

Lovey sees the car roar up, and flip. She scrambles down to try to help the man in the car. Whereupon a comment is made that there are no boys here, unless Lovey brought some. Lovey helps Royal back to her place to patch her up. And Lovey learns that some women wear men’s clothing.

A relationship between Lovey and Royal develops – but it’s kind of hard, what with it being 1939 rural Georgia. And the Duval family and the Edwards family are kind of on opposite sides on certain matters (like how dry the county should be). This here is where I insert something I thought of while reading the book. There are aspects, obviously, involved when two women meet and get involved romantically. Not putting that aside, I’d like to note that Royal could actually have been a man and there still would have been massive problems involved in having a male Royal date Lovey. Issues that would need to be overcome/resolved regardless of gender. Course, then you take that on, the gender thing, and it seems hopeless, eh?

The problems of two women courting, or whatever word you wish to use, in 1939, causes massive issues. As does the ‘low character’ attached to the Duval name, at least as seen through the eyes of ‘good’ people like Abraham Edwards. Massive massive issues. Oh, and to help remind people that this is 1939 rural Georgia, there’s a few scenes here and there involving (1) blacks being treated badly; (2) women being treated poorly, as lower class citizens; one such event involving a black woman being felt up by some ‘good old white boys’.

Romance
It’s 1939. Two women find they have feelings for each other. One, as far as she knew, is a straight woman (here I’ll note the whole genre/topic/theme of straight women in lesbian fiction actually makes a certain amount of sense – if worked right – in a 1939 book). The other is a ‘player’. Obviously . . . . obviously nothing. The romance went a gentle, magical type direction. And somewhat faster than I kind of expected.

Still, problems pop up, what with it being 1939; one is the daughter of the local minister; the same one wanting to keep up appearances and so allows herself to be courted by a man (Joe Dawson). So, yeah, there are problems making this romance ‘work’.

Overall, though, the romance worked quite well. Despite certain things here and there, seemed to flow naturally.

Overall
One of my first, maybe first book updates noted how lovely the writing was in this book. For the most part that kept up throughout the book. Maybe not at whatever level it had to be to get me to actually make that comment initially, but still ‘lovely’.

I liked the book. It was an enjoyable read. Showed the frustrations of attempting to be a woman in the early 20th century, a lesbian, and a resident of a small rural county in the south. I’d recommend the book.

February 29 2016