The Tilted Word is written by husband and wife team, author Tom Franklin and poet Beth Ann Fennelly. Set during the catastrophic 1927 flooding of the Mississippi this is a beautifully written story that includes murder, bootlegging and unexpected love.

Revenuers Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson arrive in Hobnob Landing with a mission to locate the local bootlegger and the murderer of the missing two revenuers that were last known to be in Hobnob. On the way, they unexpectedly find an abandoned baby at a crime scene. While Ham travels on, Ingersoll takes the baby and tries to find a family for him. He ends up coming on to Hobnob and placing the baby with Dixie Clay Holliver, little knowing that she is married to the bootlegger that they are searching for. On her part, Dixie Clay is living a life of mourning and regret. Mourning the baby she lost and regret over her marriage to the slimy, corrupt Jesse. Dixie falls in love with her new baby and she and Ingersoll bond over their concern and caring of the infant. While the romance is slow and gentle, both the tension and the river continue to rise.

The Tilted World is a gripping story and one in which the reader cannot help but root for Dixie Clay and Ingersoll to not only find each other, but save the baby and themselves from the devastating flood. Considering that there were two authors, the story is smoothly knit together and 1927 rural Mississippi comes alive on these pages. ( )

A nice, sweet love story. The two main characters have many obstacles which should keep them from finding love. But nothing can keep them apart, love will find a way. ( )

The Tilted World is a collaborative effort between Tom Franklin, the masterful author of [b:Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter|7948230|Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter|Tom Franklin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1292689648s/7948230.jpg|11552215], and his wife Beth Ann Fennelly. The plot plays out against the backdrop of the 1927 Great Flood of the Mississippi River, in which 27,000 miles were inundated and hundreds of lives were lost.

Dixie Clay (okay, I admit that I loved that name) is a bootlegger. She distills the best hooch in the state while her charming husband, Jesse, conducts PR and sells. Ingersoll is a veteran of the Great War who has drifted into being a top-notch revenuer. Dixie Clay’s still is the one he is especially tasked to find and she is the key to finding out what happened to the last two revenuers sent to Hobnob to investigate. Ingersoll and Dixie Clay ought to be automatic enemies, but there is the matter of the husband who is the definition of bad and a baby whose welfare becomes a priority for them both.

The characters are well-drawn, and there are moments of brilliant writing with a plot that makes you smile and grimace in equal shares. But, the bad guy is just a little too senselessly bad. I know greed and ambition can make monsters, but this was a little over-the-top. The end was just a little too neatly tied for my tastes and totally lacked surprises. And, try to imagine finding one individual, of whom you had no idea of their whereabouts, at the height of the Katrina floods. The proverbial needle in the haystack. Sorry, but it would not be easy or quick.

So, a book that felt like a 4.5 star read three-quarters of the way in, turned out to be just a 3.0 by the end. It bears saying that Tom Franklin can write amazing books. Both [b:Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter|7948230|Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter|Tom Franklin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1292689648s/7948230.jpg|11552215] and [b:Hell at the Breech|214340|Hell at the Breech|Tom Franklin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1332556246s/214340.jpg|207505] were raw and realistic and moving. Both had much deeper issues being explored and both left me wanting more. I failed to find any deeper issues to contemplate here, which might account for why I felt disappointed when I closed the cover on this one. ( )

Such a beautiful story, a love story between a revenue agent and a bootlegger. I borrowed the book from the library, but I also had the audio version with the plan of listening at work and read at home. But, I ended up listening to the book since the narrator (Brian D'Arcy James) and the story worked so well together. I just love listening to a great book that becomes even greater with the right narrator.

As for the story. I love reading stories set in the 20s, and in this case, the story takes place in 1927 and the Mississippi is about to flood. Two revenue agents have disappeared in the little town of Hobnob and now federal revenue agent Ted Ingersoll and his partner, Ham Johnson has been sent to find out what happened to them. Meanwhile, Dixie Clay is worried that her husband is involved with the revenue agents disappearance.

The Tilted World is my very first Tom Franklin (and Beth Ann Fennelly) book, but I have Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin at home and I plan to read it. I quite liked The Tilted World, the writing, the story, and the characters were great. And the addition of the baby that Ted Ingersoll found and tried to find a good home to was a wonderful addition to the story. ( )

adult historic fiction; murder and intrigue during the 1927 Great Flooding of Mississippi R. ( )

This is a wonderfully absorbing story with a great historical background, the Mississippi River floods of 1927. The plot doesn't surprise you; it all sort of goes as you expect (and hope) it will. But along the way, Franklin and Fennelly (husband and wife) paint a vivid picture of the flood and the people caught up in it, beginning with two Federal agents sent to investigate the disappearance of two predecessors who were trying to shut down stills (this is the Prohibition era). Having read most of Franklin's previous work, I assume he is responsible for the more violent parts of the book--but who knows? It is a great, rewarding, and even educational read by two excellent writers. ( )

This novel is set in the early 20th century in the days surrounding the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in the US, encompassing an area the size of Conn., New Hampshire, Mass., and Vermont. The flood plays such as role in this novel that you could consider it a character.

I will let the words of one of the primary characters, Dixie Clay, give a synopsis of the story:

It is time to tell you a story, a story that will surpise you. The year was 1927, and Lord, the rains did rain. Your mama was a bootlegger, and your daddy was a revenuer, so they were meant to be enemies, natural enemies, like the owl and the dormouse. But instead they fell in love.

I discovered a new favorite Southern author in Tom Frankin. And this novel won't be my last of his read. ( )

This book was a well written, fictional account of the 1927 flooding of the Mississippi River. It was interesting to see how the flood affected the characters, killing some, and bringing redemption to others. There were times in this book that I disliked most of the main characters and disagreed with their activities, but the authors did a wonderful job of bringing these characters to life and making them three-dimensional. I would recommend to this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. ( )

The is the 4th book I have read by Franklin. This one is different because he co-authored this with his wife Beth Ann Fennelly. This story has the backdrop of the great flood of 1927 that devastated the Mississippi Delta and Prohibition. The story surrounds revenue agents and bootleggers. It is a combination of a crime story and a love story. The language is beautiful and the story holds your interest. I did find the believability of elements of the story a little stretched and that is why I don't rate this as high as Franklin's previous books but it is a good read. It especially does a good job of showing the hypocrisy of Prohibition and the story of the 1927 flood which in today's dollar cost $800 billion. A good author to explore. ( )

I definitely recommend this one. It's a love story but not a romance novel or "chick-lit". There's more to it than that. And it keeps a good pace throughout the whole book - it always kept me coming back. ( )

Very well written. The fact that a poet co-wrote this is very apparent, the words just flowed beautifully. ( )

I confess that my favorite of Tom Franklin's novels remains his first, though that's as nostalgic a response as it is a critical one. But this thing has its own kind of magic, in places sentimental almost to the point of feeling saccharine or corny but goddamn, when the authors get sugar and corn they know how to make whiskey.

I've always loved Franklin and his wife/partner/collaborator Beth Ann Fennelly, as artists and as human beings, and on those rare occasions they might co-author a short story, their work together has been outstanding, all of Franklin's prose and all of Fennelly's poetry in each sentence. How thrilling to see here, in this novel, that they can sustain that literary alchemy over so long a project. I'll always look forward to their separate endeavors, but I sure as hell hope they write together again, too. ( )

It's odd, until last autumn I had never come across the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927; then I read Bill Bryson's book about that year and discovered how huge the scale of the devastation was. Now along comes this book set right in the flood's path. It is a tale of prohibition and bootlegging, of revenuers and moonshiner in a tiny Mississippi town with vividly drawn characters, whose back stories include Francs in World War One set amidst the ever growing threat of Ol' Miss and the rain that never stops. Brilliantly written this has at its core a love story which is moving and credible. I recommend it to everyone. ( )

In life, it is often difficult to choose between good and bad or even to decide where you stand on an issue. During prohibition, many former law abiding citizens became frequent customers of moonshiners. Often the moonshiner even became an integral member of the community. "The Tilted World" is set in the fictional small town of Hobnob Mississippi during the time of the real 1927 Mississippi River flood. It explores many facets of small town life during that era including the relationships between moonshiners, revenooers, sabotuers and other citizens. As the story unfolds, we find out about the long time friendship between two revenue agents, the love of a mother for her son both biological and adopted and romantic feelings that develop between a revenue agent and a moonshiner. The book is full of interesting small town characters. It was a very enjoyable read!

I received the book free in a giveaway. ( )

In life, it is often difficult to choose between good and bad or even to decide where you stand on an issue. During prohibition, many former law abiding citizens became frequent customers of moonshiners. Often the moonshiner even became an integral member of the community. "The Tilted World" is set in the fictional small town of Hobnob Mississippi during the time of the real 1927 Mississippi River flood. It explores many facets of small town life during that era including the relationships between moonshiners, revenooers, sabotuers and other citizens. As the story unfolds, we find out about the long time friendship between two revenue agents, the love of a mother for her son both biological and adopted and romantic feelings that develop between a revenue agent and a moonshiner. The book is full of interesting small town characters. It was a very enjoyable read!

I received the book free in a giveaway. ( )

As the Great Flood of 1927 threatens the Mississippi Delta, Prohibition agents Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson arrive in the town of Hobnob, Mississippi searching for a pair of agents who have gone missing. What they find instead are the remains of a robbery gone bad and an abandoned baby. Determined to find a home for the child, Ingersoll is told to take him to Dixie Clay Holliver, a local woman still grieving the loss of her own son. Though Dixie Clay and the agent feel an immediate connection, Ingersoll will soon discover he's stumbled upon the best bootlegger in the county and her increasingly dangerous husband.

Co-written novels can easily become peppered with disjointed phrases and jarring plot holes, making the venture a risky one. But husband and wife team Franklin and Fennelly combine both their storytelling and their vastly different styles to make The Titled World a gorgeous blend of grit and tenderness.

Much of the novel's balance seems to come from the fact that, while the story centers on one male and one female character, neither is held down by the gender stereotypes of their time. Much of Ingersoll's story focuses on his paternal instinct toward the child he finds, while Dixie Clay takes on a typically male role of moonshining and begins questioning her early marriage.

From two treasures of writing, The Tilted World is a gripping snapshot of American history sure to please long time fans and new readers alike.

Blog: www.rivercityreading.com ( )

Fiction based on extensive research of events all too real, The Tilted World tells the story of the great Mississippi Flood of 1927 from the perspective of two people who are brought together by this catastrophic event.

The book, co-written by a literary husband/wife team, tells the tale from alternating perspectives of the female protagonist, a surprisingly likeable moonshine whiskey brewer, and the male protagonist, a sharp shooting war hero turned Revenue Agent.

Ted Ingersoll and his senior partner Ham Johnson have been sent undercover to the small community of Hobnob to find out what has become of two missing agents, who were last known to be in Hobnob. But unexpectedly, the first thing they come across when they get to town is a crime scene, where the survivor is a bawling baby boy, the newly orphaned child of parents desperate enough to try to rob the general store so they could feed their baby.

Ingersoll, raised an orphan himself, can't bear to leave the boy at a children's home, so begins to look for a family who could give the child a home. Upon the recommendation of a clerk at one of the other stores in town, he seeks out Dixie Clay Holliver who lives a little ways out of town. She is still mourning the loss of her young son who had died in his infancy a couple of years earlier.

Dixie Clay doesn't really trust the stranger, Ingersoll, but is all too willing to give the child a home. She has no idea that he is a Revenuer and he certainly has no clue that she is the one making the high quality moonshine that her shady bootlegger husband sells.

If you have read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, you know what a great story teller and writer that Tom Franklin is. Franklin and Fennelly have created complex and nuanced characters to tell the story of the events leading up to and then following the catastrophic flood that affects the Mississippi shore from Cairo, Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. Their writing styles harmonize so smoothly that one can't tell when one writer stops and the other begins.

This is an opportunity for the reader to learn some aspects of American History in the South that I'll bet you didn't learn in school. Not to mention it is a great love story, a great redemption story, and a heartfelt treatise on what really makes a family. ( )

An unconventional love story set in Mississippi in 1927, this novel introduces two wonderful characters - Dixie Clay and Teddy Ingersoll, one a bootlegger and one a federal revenue agent. How their paths cross and separate and cross again amid the threat of a flooding Mississippi River is the plot of the story, but read this book for Dixie and Teddy. They are both wounded and sad but fierce and hopeful at the same time, and you will root for their story to end happily. There is also a baby, a sandbag full of dynamite, a grotesque flapper, and enough period detail to keep one immersed in the story. A fun and engrossing read! ( )

This delicious novel is penned by a novelist and poet, who co-wrote the entire thing, creating an atmospheric, emotional, and vivid story of love, place, betrayal, and violence. I apologize now if my review doesn't convey my deep like and enthusiasm for this novel -- writing reviews recently has been hard! (Pregnancy brain! and all that, right??)

Set in 1927 in a fictional town on the Mississippi, the story is split between Dixie Clay, a bootlegger who lost her son two years ago; and Ted Ingersoll, a IRS agent searching for two murdered revenue agents with his partner Ham Johnson. But the plot isn't precisely a cat-and-mouse tale, nor a will-they-or-won't-they love story, as the threat of the Mississippi flooding over its levees colors everything and everyone.

Ingersoll, a jazz-loving orphan who fought in Europe during World War I, stumbles upon an infant when he and his partner investigate the scene of a shootout. Loathe to leave the child at an orphanage, on the recommendation of a shop keeper he gives the baby to a young housewife, pretty Dixie Clay.

Dixie, still heartbroken over the death of her infant, clings to the new child, disbelieving -- and unwilling to give him up even when her good-for-nothing husband threatens her. While Ingersoll and his partner masquerade as engineers arrived to help fortify the levees against the swelling Mississippi, they quickly learn that Dixie Clay's swank and swaggering husband is an ambitious criminal, and Ingersoll has to reconcile his interest in Dixie with his desire to do his job well.

There's a love story in this novel that is predictable, but I didn't mind, as I just adored both Dixie and Ingersoll. The flood of 1927 was totally new to me, despite being considered by some to be the worst natural disaster to ever occur in our country, and the events and impact of the flood were fascinating and disturbing and made for a fantastic backdrop to this story.

I'll admit I was curious how coherent the story would feel with two authors. My apprehension was that the two viewpoints would be split between the authors -- Ingersoll penned by Franklin and Dixie by Fennelly -- and according to the Reader's Guide included with the novel, this was the original plan. In the end, however, both authors worked on both characters and sections, and the resulting prose is just gorgeous -- lyrical, poetic, rich, and action-filled.

As one who is going to give birth in a few months, I enjoyed Dixie's ruminations on motherhood and parenting -- I haven't been drawn to fiction around those themes for some reason, but welcomed them here. (Fennelly wrote Great With Child, a volume of letters she sent to a pregnant friend -- "These are letters I would have welcomed when I was pregnant," she said -- and if they're half as tender and thoughtful as her writing here, I'm going to love them.)

For those who enjoy Jazz Era-novels but want something different, consider this one -- I haven't stumbled over many novels that feature jazz fans and flappers that aren't set in a large urban center. Fans of fiction set in the South absolutely will want this book -- place is a very rich character here! Thoughtful and action-filled, this is a wonderfully escapist novel with two very appealing characters and an absorbing story. ( )

Oh, where to start.....I absolutely loved The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly! I literally started the book on a Sunday morning and feverishly read until I turned the last page the same night.

Franklin and Fennelly have set their book in 1927 Mississippi - at the time of one of the greatest natural disasters ever to occur in the US. The flood flattened 'almost a million homes, drowning twenty-seven thousand square miles and the water remained for four months. Over 330,000 people were rescued from trees, roofs, and levees."

Dixie Clay Holliver lives along the Mississippi at a bend in the river called Hobnob. Dixie's life isn't quite what she imagined it would be when she married Jesse. Turns out that Jesse is a moonshiner. The loss of her infant son has only added to her grief at the direction her life has taken. But, Dixie does the cooking now - she's better at it than Jesse.

Teddy Ingersoll is a revenuer. In this time of prohibition, Teddy and his partner Ham are always on the move. On their way to Hobnob to investigate the disappearance of two other agents, they come across the lone survivor of a shoot out - an infant boy. Inexplicably, Ingersoll is determined to find a home for the child. When they arrive in Hobnob, Dixie Clay is mentioned as woman who might take in an orphan.

And with that, Dixie and Ingersoll's lives and fates are crossed.

The Tilted World is such a strong novel is every sense of the world. The characters are brilliant. I was so captured by Dixie Clay - her strength, fortitude and abilities belie the hurt beneath her tough exterior. Ingersoll is much the same, with that same strength and fortitude, but no real purpose or direction in his heart.

The setting is just as much of a character in the book as Dixie and Ingersoll. Franklin and Fennelly have done a phenomenal job in bringing time and place to the page. The detailed descriptions of the town, the woods and most of all, the water created vivid mental images for this reader.

Dual narratives are used in The Tilted World to good effect, allowing the reader to be privy to the thoughts of both protagonists.

The Tilted World exemplifies storytelling at it's finest. I was completely caught up in Franklin and Fennelly's tale. I knew what I wanted to happen, I was afraid of what might happen and I couldn't read fast enough to see what did happen. The Tilted World is absolutely recommended. ( )

The year is 1927, and mid-southern states are about to be flooded. This disaster pushed Hubert Hoover into the White House, and is a disaster very little remembered. I had never heard about this massive flooding, and was amazed by the huge loss of people and buildings. This is a fictional account of that flooding and a story into the life and times of moon shiners. Again, I learned the reason behind the label of moon shiner and a brief lesson in moon shining. Any book that teaches me something new, but still provides an interesting story is a book worth reading. The writing flows nicely, but the story falls apart at the end. The massive waters surge through towns and farms, and the story just ebbs away. ( )

Set along the Mississippi River during the horrible flood of 1927, this is a tale of a (female) bootlegger, a revenue agent and orphan baby--a family to be. It captures beautifully the time and place and the prose was a pleasure to read. ( )

This story is built around the worst natural disaster in the USA -the Mississippi River flood of 1927. The brief description of this flood in the upfront material is staggering. Jessie marries Dixie, it's prohibition time, and they run a highly profitable still. And so they are _targets of Herbert Hoover's revenue agents. Dixie becomes so adept that she takes over the production responsibilities, and Jessie does all the Marketing. Very early in their marriage, they lost their newborn son to scarlet fever. Ted Ingersoll, one of HHs boys acquires a newly orphaned baby boy and leaves him with Dixie to care for. Soon things get even more complicated. Largely due of course to the ocean of floodwaters headed their way. And then there's the highly stressed levee system trying to protect all the little towns situated at each and every bend and twist in the raging river. And it keeps raining. This is an exciting book and a sweet romance, and its put together by a very excellent author team. Highly recommended. By the way, this is also one of the 'big' subjects of Bryson's "One Summer". I had never heard of this incredible disaster and then wind up reading two books simultaneously that deal with it at length, and very well. ( )

I won this ARC edition in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this story of the great Mississippi flood in 1927 (I never even knew about that), prohibition, bootleggers, moonshiners and some romance. The story takes place within a 2 week span and Franklin gives the reader a wonderful portrayal of the lives of small town folks affected by prohibition, the law personnel whose job it is to enforce prohibition (or not enforce it) and the impending threat of levee breaks along the Mississippi.

Franklin and Fennelly were able to capture rural America with prose that flowed through the pages like the raging waters of the great river. The language is true leading to a fast paced read with no 'slow' parts. Characters are believable and are further enhanced by their background stories. The romance portion of the story is downplayed making this a quasi romance novel.

Overall a very good read. ( )

This historical novel takes place during the “great Mississippi floods of 1927”. Set in Hobnob, Mississippi, the novel characterizes their people, lives and suffering during the massive natural disaster.

Moonshine and bootlegging is a way of life in and around Hobnob. Young Dixie married top moonshiner, Jesse. It is not an easy marriage, laden with problems, including the loss of an infant.

The Government sends in agents to shut down the bootlegging of moonshine in Mississippi, particularly in and around Hobnob. While seeking out stills and illegal operations, two agents go missing. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover then must send in two special agents under the guise of being engineers.

One of the agents, Ingersoll, finds an infant and places it with Dixie, who is more than willing. This only creates another set of problems, while complicating existing issues. The relationship between these characters is interesting and intriguing.

A complex, multi-layered story, it is vivid in its imagery and colourful in its characters. Offering romance, suspense, history, crime, and intense character portrayals it will hold your interest and keep you involved. ( )