The Tobacco Men by Borden Deal

The Tobacco Men

by Borden Deal

Michael Joseph, 1966, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous store stamp on front endpaper, price clipped dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, bumping, creasing, chips and tears to covers, edges and corners (see photographs)

“In the early 1930’s the great American writer, Theodore Dreiser, travelled to Kentucky to investigate an important and dramatic episode which had never previously been treated in fiction.  The results of Mr. Dreiser’s research were some twenty pages of notes on the tobacco industry between 1860 and 1910 – a period which saw the growth of the giant cartels, farmer’s associations, private armies, and which culminated in the “tobacco wars” just after the turn of the century.
Using Mr. Dreiser’s notes, Borden Deal has recreated this turbulent period in a major novel which parallels the personal lives of two men driven by opposing forces into a violent and fateful confrontation.
In Oren Knox, Mr. Deal has portrayed a man of consuming ambition who, through marriage, has taken over the North Carolina tobacco industry and built it into an international trust.  Grasping more and more power in futile attempt to elicit affection from his wife, Knox is finally involved in a brutal power struggle in Tennessee and Kentucky with the Growers’ Association and later with the Night Riders, led by Amos Haines, a humane country doctor.  The unexpected and ironic outcome of this taut interplay reveals both the good and evil nature of man in forceful and dramatic terms.”