Customer Reviews

When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was the most enjoyable and informative book I've read in a while.

I grew up listening to my grandfather tell stories about how he and his siblings would sit outside on the front porch and watch the 'shiners race their souped-up hot-rods to outrun the Revenuers past his house on the main road from the mountains of NC into the central Piedmont (folks: those are the origins of NASCAR!).

However, I must say I never really considered how the 18th Amendment and the subsequent Volstead Act affected the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, and that's a terrible shame. This book taught me another important aspect of the Prohibition story and nightmare.

The author strikes a perfect balance, alternating between a general history of the Temperance movement and Prohibition itself in Washington and nationwide (including some great political intrigue), while telling personal histories (some from interviews, some from memoirs and other books) about the wine families themselves, the criminal element, the oft-necessity of bootlegging just to stay financially solvent, etc. Her text is meticulously researched with copious documentation, which I value highly as a student of History.

Her obvious love of this land shines through in this accounting of its people (largely a first or second-generation immigrant population of patriotic Americans, whether they be workers, bootleggers, or wine-artisans/growers). We leave this reading the richer for having explored her work.

NOT to be missed. FIVE wholehearted stars!

When the Rivers Ran Red is a exploration of the effects that Prohibition had on the wine makers of Napa Valley in California. Families who had been making wine for generations were suddenly forced out of business by a constitutional amendment that made their main product illegal. The book explores their plight and the efforts they made both domestically and politically to make ends meet during trying times.

From there, the book goes on to detail the efforts to put Prohibition into place, the passing of prohibition and Napa Valley's reaction to those events up until Prohibition's repeal. This includes focusing on some of the area's key players and how they worked through the issues of the day. The tone of the book puts the wine growers in a positive light despite the fact that many broke the law by making and selling their wine despite prohibition.

Unfortunately for me, I just was not able to get into this book. For some reason, I found it rambling and somewhat boring. Frankly, I simply was unable to finish it. Perhaps it was the style. The author has a dry tone and very "just the facts Ma'am" sort of approach laden with statistics and figures. While this works well for a scholarly work, it makes it less accessible to the casual reader.

This is a scholarly book with a bit of human interest gloss on it to try to appeal to a broader audience. The gloss in minimal and just not enough to get past the focus on statistical effects and politics. The opening segment I described really was most of what human interest there was.

To the author's credit, this book is well researched and detailed. I don't doubt that to the serious scholar, her work will be incredibly valuable. She's also covered a subject that I doubt that anyone else has looked into with much detail.

Bottom line is that the serious wine enthusiast or history student will find value in this book as it certainly covers its subject in detail, but for the casual reader it's a hard sell.

Prohibition sounded good and the majority of America felt that they should support it. America's largest experiment in social engineering became an object lesson in the limits of government and the inadvisability of imposing moral codes on others. While the majority may have voted for the idea of prohibition, they had no intention of living with it. Americans wanted a drink and did not intend to alter their habits, social norms or ideas of fun due to a law. Those working in the production of beer, wine and liquors had no plans of giving up their livelihood either.
Between the producers and the consumers stand a small army of enforcement agents, many of whom are consumers too. How these agents are bypassed, hoodwinked and/or bribed so that supply can find demand was a deadly game played on a national stage. A small part of that story is how the California wine industry survived during prohibition. This book covers Northern California's wine industry, enforcement efforts and how the law is evaded. It is not an easy read; the author has a dry legalist style that keeps this from being really enjoyable. However, he tells a good story, draws very good portraits of the people and displays a real interest in the subject. The book can be fun, can be boring and sometimes seems mostly legal. The author, to his credit, keeps his feelings to himself and is fair to all sides. This is not "The Untouchables" with blazing guns, one-way rides and big city crimes. This is grape growers and wine makers struggling to get by.

I think this book has a lot to recommend it. Vivienne Sosnowski has done a lot of original research about California/s wine country during Prohibition. She has combed through the newspaper files of the era, mined oral histories, and interviewed extensively. Then why didn't I enjoy reading WHEN THE RIVERS RAN RED very much?
My main problem was with Sosnowski's writing style, which seemed to alternate between pedantic and overly dramatic. Her presentation of facts and figures needed some juicing up, while the first-person narratives didn't need additional hype.
That said, there isn't a better non-fiction account of events in this time and place than Sosnowski's, that I know of.

What a great book. Easy to read. Insightful, accurate and at times, heartbreaking. This book shows that banning things generally results in bigger and worse problems in the system. Makes you think about our current bans on drugs and prostitution, most likely legalizing them will put a lot of dealers and politicians out of job, and would end our gang problems! God forbid!

Being interested in wines and in wine growing (and history), I decided to get this book for my husband, since it seemed like something he would be interested in. It was really an excellent book which gives great insight into the prohibition and how it affected vineyards in California. Compelling read that is just packed with drama and history put together! I loved how it explained, in very neutral terms, why the political forces passed prohibition, and how it affected all the families in California. Very, very interesting read that I highly recommend!

For the oenophiles out there; this book on a brief time in the history of American wine production should be an enjoyable read. I recommend this book.

The book should be pulled back and re-edited as well as proof-read. The numerous typos, grammatical and punctuation errors, repetitious padding, non-sentences and run-on sentences were so distracting that I only felt relief at the end of Page 200. The author's passion for the subject and tons of data are much appreciated, but the final product lacks professionalism. I only hope someone performed a fact check.

The majority of the books about Prohibition highlight the impact of the Volstead Act on brewers and distillers and it was interesting to see it from the perspective of the wine industry. Vivienne Sosnowski has researched the topic extensively (with an amazing 452 citations in 200 pages) and from a factual/historical standpoint, it is good. While she has an intellectual understanding of the events, she has not mastered the art of telling the story in a manner that is particularly appealing. The book reads like the first draft of a first time author who is has not quite figured out how to engage the reader. The personal stories of the families are good but they feel imposed rather than woven into the data. The publisher describes this as "charming" which maybe explains the pretentious and peculiar choice of language. The overuse of words such as "draconian",phrases like "an electric storm of worry and excitement", "financial supernova" and a chapter title "Moonshine is Almost as Ubiquitous as the Radiance from the Moon Itself" are reminiscent of the Victorians and diminish the scholarship. This is a book that needs to be rethought and re-edited if there is any hope for it being successful with even its niche Napa Valley audience. It is not a book that I could see recommending to even the most ardent oenophile.

If you like wine, enjoy history, and getting into the realm of human interest; you put them all together and Vivienne Sosnowski has given that type person a great read. I liked it very much. It kindya makes you want to admire people who struggle creating history...One damned thing after another. People in around Sonoma and Napa, when I mention the fact that I liked the read, have told me that Vivienne's efforts to gather facts for the book were truly profound. People who can write and do write make it a little better for the rest of us. Nice job.