In 1916, a Louisiana family is reshaped by trouble and alcohol. Maggie May Chilcote watches over her heavy-drinking father, Roger Chilcote, helping him in small, steady ways—tying his shoes, pulling him back from public spectacles, and carrying him through the worst of his escalations. Roger’s life spirals into a destructive mix of drinking and gambling that drains most of the family’s money. In the grip of withdrawal, he takes his own life. At the funeral, friends toast him, but Maggie makes a quiet vow to fight the scourge of alcohol abuse that took him from them.
Meanwhile, Maggie’s brother, Roger Chilcote, Jr., a young writer, heads to New York City after his novel is accepted. His college friend, Jerry Tyler, a newsroom keeper of stories, rents him a room in the modest hotel where he stays. The hotel is run by the troubled, often reckless hands of Pow Tarleton, a man who has wasted his family’s resources on drink, with his wife, Bertha Tarleton, and their son Kip Tarleton managing the place. Pow’s political zeal and drink are bound together as he stumps for Woodrow Wilson’s reelection while keeping the drinks flowing and the family strained.
World War I interrupts ordinary life; the war ends and the 18th Amendment becomes law in 1919 despite President Wilson’s veto, reshaping the social landscape that Maggie and the Tarleton clan inhabit. Maggie May travels to the hotel to meet her brother, where a flirtatious Pow mistakes her for a prostitute and leads her to Roger’s room. Kip rushes upstairs to eject her, but his anger cools and he learns the truth. Roger discovers that Pow has replaced all of his liquor with water, a cruel substitute that underscores the era’s paradoxes. Maggie May realizes that she and Kip are fighting the same battle, and their shared resolve draws them closer. The siblings visit relatives on Long Island, trying to distance themselves from temptation.
On June 29, 1919, a wave of prohibition-fueled secrecy and drinking culminates at a lavish family party. Roger is smitten with actress Eileen Pinchon during a night when the cousins’ bar—stocked by a boat from Bermuda—seems to promise anything. Bertha Tarleton’s attempt to seize a bottle triggers a brutal turn; Pow breaks her, and she dies amid the sounds of Prohibition being declared in earnest. Pow is sentenced to life imprisonment as the consequences of the era’s laws begin to take their toll. Kip rejects renewing the hotel lease, leaving guests to wonder how to move the liquor stored in their rooms. Maggie May comforts Kip, and a confession of love follows. The couple marry, and Kip joins the U.S. Department of the Treasury, stepping into a country-wide struggle against bootleggers.
Kip’s boss, Major Randolph, doesn’t fully embrace Prohibition yet enforces it with limited resources. He pairs Kip with Abe Shilling, a seasoned, idiosyncratic agent. In a bar, the two watch teenagers drink; their cover is blown, and they’re beaten and thrown out. A warning comes from a crook: bootleggers are forming an organized network. Maggie reveals to Kip that she is pregnant, adding a personal stake to the turbulent national scene.
Across the country, bootlegger networks expand, funded by the bribes and power of big business. At Eileen Pinchon’s speakeasy, Abe announces a raid, and the police smash the club. Roger—now a major investor in the club—wakes up sick and blind. An ophthalmologist explains that similar cases have risen since Prohibition began; methyl-laced alcohol is a cruel weapon. Roger moves in with Kip and Maggie and takes up Braille, confronting a world he can no longer see.
Kip vows to seek justice for Roger. The Major signs the warrant, but he argues that Prohibition’s failures run deeper than enforcement. With Maggie about to give birth, Kip is kidnapped from the hospital by gangsters who intend to use him as a warning. Abe saves him but is shot, dying in Kip’s arms and urging him to quit the department and prioritize his family. At the hospital, Kip gazes at his newborn son and speaks a stark line about the era they’ve entered: “born into an awful mess...Before they pull him into it, I guess they'll have it all figured out.”
> born into an awful mess...Before they pull him into it, I guess they'll have it all figured out.
Book was read by Mahatma Gandhi while in Erawada jail
