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Allusion is not Illusion
You'll pry my books off my cold, dead body. By the time you shift them all I'll be flat and dessicated.
Currently reading
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Most Americans think about Prohibition from the point of view of consumers or, influenced by popular culture's obsession with gangsters, as a struggle between smugglers and G-men. Those not from one of the few old wine-producing regions of the country probably have never imagined the effect the 18th Amendment had on those whose livelihoods depended on wine.Sosnowski opens with a moving scene -- the Foppiano family watching as federal agents poured out 140,000 gallons of wine, representing years of labor and financial investment. Almost all wineries in the 19th and early 20th centuries were family business, and many of them disappeared completely. The majority of vineyards were torn out and some older grape varietals were lost. Even after Prohibition ended, it took years for California's wine industry to recover.
This is familiar territory for me, but for someone being introduced to this history for the first time, the fascinating story and individuals might be a lost in the deluge of names and dates with which Sosnowski floods the first chapters. The prose also leaves a bit to be desired , not terrible but larded with repetitions of more, so, far, mostly and other bland modifiers, the same ones recurring in sentence after sentence. Sosnowski's career was in editorial journalism, and while the affection for the subject which inspired her to try her hand at writing shines though, it does not entirely make up for the deficiencies in style.
I would recommend this book primarily to those with particular interest in wine or California history, and ideally some prior knowledge of both.