Book Review: The Hatfields and the McCoys: An Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance by Lisa Alther

I finished Blood Feud: The Hatfields and the McCoys: The Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance by Lisa Alther. It's a story, but it's not so epic. If anything, it read like a slapdash collection of family anecdotes that was so paltry that it had to be padded with equally sketchy accounts of other feuds in the region and a dollop of confused psychobabble meant to explain the families' bloodthirsty behavior. And despite her protestations to the contrary, the participants did, in fact, come across as stupid, dirty, volatile hillbillies steeped in a prehistoric social order of drunken men and dullard, submissive women who pumped out child after child despite crushing poverty.

Sure, they're people, and as such, they're deserving of dignity, but don't tell me they're just misunderstood, genteel folk with no other choice but to drink and blast holes in each other.