" The "State Line Country" of this book is a rugged area of small farms
on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Historically the area has had a
homicide rate more than ten times the national average. In this gripping
and penetrating study of violence and death in the State Line Country,
Lynwood Montell examines the local historical and social conditions, as
well as the prevailing attitudes and values, that gave rise and support
to rowdy behavior and homicidal acts from the Civil War to the 1930s.
The