The New York Times has called Ron Rash, “One of the great American Authors at work today.” The Wall Street Journal dubbed him "As good as any contemporary American novelist I've read. No wonder. His story collection, Burning Bright, won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award as the best of that genre written that year in the English language, and another of his six story collections, Chemistry, was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award, as was his New York Times best-selling novel, Serena. It was made into a Hollywood movie, and another of his seven novels, The World Made Straight, was also made into a movie. Ron Rash is also the author of five poetry collections. This book is a collection of nine short stories, averaging 14 pages each and a 93-page novella, the title piece, which serves as a sequel to his novel, Serena. Last year, when it was published in hardback, this book, In the Valley, was named the winner of the 2020 Thomas Robinson Prize for Southern Literature and both a Garden and Gun and an Atlanta Journal Constitution best book of the year. “Mesmerizing...In the Valley takes Serena to such a fever pitch of destruction that in a lesser writer's hands it might seem overheated. But Rash maintains the deep keel that has always distinguished him...He's one of the best living American writers, and his laconic understatement is much more powerful than excess…Haunting and darkly funny.”—Janet Maslin. "Pure craft...An accomplished book by a grounded, unsentimental master.”—Highbrow Magazine. “Revelatory...In simple but eloquent prose, Rash describes the vulnerabilities, fears, and desires of his characters and shows how often they unite persons from vastly different walks of life and social strata. The skillful craftsmanship of these tales and their subtle but powerful climaxes make for profoundly moving reading. —Publishers Weekly (starred review). "At turns dark, craggy, and heart-wrenching, Rash's writing is never easy, but it is also lovely, moving, and rich in history and culture, just like the Appalachian region it so beautiful captures."—Library Journal. Ron Rash holds an endowed professorship at Western Carolina University.
New York: Anchor Books/Penguin Random House, a 2021 reprint of a 2020 release. 220 pages. Trade paperback.