“Mr. Rash is one of the great American authors at work today.” – Janet Maslin in the New York Times. Only a handful of Appalachian writers have experienced anywhere near the success that Ron Rash has. Two of his novels have been made into movies, including Serena which was a New York Times best seller and a PEN/Faulkner Finalist, as was his story collection, Chemistry. Burning Bright, another story collection, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award as the best collection of the year from anywhere in the English-speaking world! This is his sixth and latest novel to go with The Ron Rash Reader and six story collections and five poetry collections. Unquestionably, Ron Rash is a literary writer as opposed to a popular author. Although accessible - not obtuse or obscure - his works have deep themes, unsurpassed authenticity, and poetic phrasing. This novel beings in 1969 in the North Carolina mountains as two brothers encounter a girl about their age who they’ve never seen before. She disappears, but their reactions to her contribute to a growing rift between the brothers. The story picks up again decades later when there is an unmistakable class divide between the brothers. Ron Rash grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where his father, a mountaineer who migrated to the South Carolina mills, had painstakingly completed the education to become a college professor. Ron Rash holds an endowed chair in creative writing at Western Carolina University.
New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, a 2017 paperback edition of a 2016 release. 253 pages. Trade paperback.