Nothing Gold Can Stay: Stories $24.99
New York, NY: Ecco Press
PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash turns again to Appalachia to capture lives haunted by violence and tenderness, hope and fear, in unforgettable stories that span from the Civil War to the present day.
In the title story, two drug-addicted friends return to the farm where they worked as boys to steal their former boss’s gruesomely unusual war trophies. In “The Trusty,” which first appeared in The New Yorker, a prisoner sent to fetch water for his chain gang tries to sweet-talk a farmer’s young wife into helping him escape, only to find that she is as trapped as he is. In “Something Rich and Strange,” a diver is called upon to pull a drowned girl’s body free from under a falls, but he finds her eerily at peace below the surface. The violence of Rash’s characters and their raw settings are matched only by their resonance and stark beauty, a masterful combination that has earned Rash an avalanche of praise.
One Foot in Eden $300.00
Charlotte, NC: Novello Festival (2002)
Simply, almost elementally told through the voices of a sheriff, a local farmer, his beautiful wife, their son, and the sheriff’s deputy, “One Foot in Eden” signals the bellwether arrival of one the most mature and distinctive voices in southern literature.
Serena $150.00
New York, NY: Ecco Press (2008)
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains–but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband’s life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons’ intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning. Rash’s masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.
Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories $27.99
New York, NY: Ecco Press
From the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling award-winning author of Serena and The Cove, thirty of his finest short stories, collected in one volume.
No one captures the complexities of Appalachia–a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty–as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank OConnor International Short Story Award, two O Henry prizes, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Rash brilliantly illuminates the tensions between the traditional and the modern, the old and new south, tenderness and violence, man and nature. Though the focus is regional, the themes of Rashs work are universal, striking an emotional chord that resonates deep within each of our lives.
Something Rich and Strange showcases this revered masters artistry and craftsmanship in thirty stories culled from his previously published collections Nothing Gold Can Stay, Burning Bright, Chemistry, and The Night New Jesus Fell to Earth. Each work of short fiction demonstrates Rashs dazzling ability to evoke the heart and soul of this land and its people–men and women inexorably tethered to the geography that defines and shapes them. Filled with suspense and myth, hope and heartbreak, told in language that flows like “shimmering, liquid poetry” (Atlanta Journal Constitution), Something Rich and Strange is an iconic work from an American literary virtuoso.
The Cove $26.99
New York, NY: Ecco Press (2012)
In their little cabin set in the shadow of a deep cove, Laurel Shelton and her brother Hank have built a home. The locals whisper about the cove being cursed and perhaps it is: good fortune rarely seems to wind its way down the long overgrown trail that leads to their clearing in the woods.
One day the course of both their lives seems altered when Laurel happens upon a stranger hiding among the trees. With only a simple haversack of worldly belongings, the alluring and mysterious Walter is soon drawn in to life in the cove, helping Hank on the farm and bringing Laurel the only real comfort she has ever known. But as soon as the dark cloud hanging over the cove finally begins to lift, a secret is uncovered that threatens to shatter their newly found happiness.
As their neighbors begin to stoke a fire of rage against the cove and its inhabitants, Laurel, Hank and Walter come to understand the terrible danger they are in …
A breathtaking, lyrical novel with a profoundly moving love story at its heart, The Cove confirms Ron Rash as a masterful novelist at the height of his powers.
Thursday September 17, 2015
Signing: 5:00
Reading: 5:30
Above the Waterfall $26.99
New York, NY: ecco (2015) As new in dust jacket.
In this poetic and haunting tale set in contemporary Appalachia, New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash illuminates lives shaped by violence and a powerful connection to the land.
Les, a long-time sheriff just three-weeks from retirement, contends with the ravages of crystal meth and his own duplicity in his small Appalachian town.
Becky, a park ranger with a harrowing past, finds solace amid the lyrical beauty of this patch of North Carolina.
Enduring the mistakes and tragedies that have indelibly marked them, they are drawn together by a reverence for the natural world. When an irascible elderly local is accused of poisoning a trout stream, Les and Becky are plunged into deep and dangerous waters, forced to navigate currents of disillusionment and betrayal that will force them to question themselves and test their tentative bond—and threaten to carry them over the edge.
Echoing the heartbreaking beauty of William Faulkner and the spiritual isolation of Carson McCullers,Above the Waterfall demonstrates once again the prodigious talent of “a gorgeous, brutal writer” (Richard Price) hailed as “one of the great American authors at work today” (Janet Maslin,New York Times).
The World Made Straight $24.00
New York, NY: Henry Holt (2006)
Before long, Travis has moved out of his parents’ home to live with Leonard Shuler, a one-time schoolteacher who lost his job and custody of his daughter years ago, when he was framed by a vindictive student. Now Leonard lives with his dogs and his sometime girlfriend in a run-down trailer outside town, deals a few drugs, and studies journals from the Civil War. Travis becomes his student, of sorts, and the fate of these two outsiders becomes increasingly entwined as the community’s terrible past and corrupt present bear down on each of them from every direction, leading to a violent reckoning—not only with Carlton, but with the legacy of the Civil War massacre that, even after a century, continues to divide an Appalachian community.
Vivid, harrowing, yet ultimately hopeful, The World Made Straight offers a powerful exploration of the painful conflict between the bonds of home and the desire for independence.