Following a whisky trail

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 17

Following a whisky trail

Born With the Century. By William Kinsolving. Collins, 1979. 515 pp. $14.95.

It must be highly satisfying for an author when his first novel is snapped up for production as a film at the same time as its publication. However, as this author has already written several screen plays, it is not too surprising that he is able to colour and develop, his story in such a way that it can be- translated relatively, easily into visual form. The saga of Magnus Macpherson, who comes to America from a small settlement in: Scotland at the beginning of the century, is a tale of the fluid intrigue and villainous trail of whisky. It saturates the politics, economics and social development of . the United States through the Firsd World War, the Prohibition era, the patriotism of the Second World War, and the struggle for gangster supremacy which subsequently came to a severed head. Peppered with names. such as Al Capone, Albert Anastasia, and Lucky Luciano on. the .vil’ains’ side, and with

■’'respectable” people involved such as Joe Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Kefauver and McCarthy, Macpherson meets, wheels and deals with them all. He survives by his ruthless drive and the power that increasing millions give him to manipulate others. Simultaneously, the extended familypasses through' trials and tribulations of murder, . suicide. drug abuse, insanity, incest and distortions of love. In the end the dynasty survives in similar minds, two generations hence. It is no wOnder, therefore, that the book is compared to “The Godfather” and one might be lulled into a feeling of deja vu at many of the episodes, even with one particularly ingenious form of torture-killing. Nevertheless the racy smooth style and apparent familiarity with the scene described give the book a mellow appeal guaranteeing . good sales and entertainment about a world that the ordinary law-abiding citizen seldom encounters directly, but finds satisfying to the darker side of his personality. — Ralf Unger.