Ron Rash Bard of the Carolina Highlands

I reviewed this book for the print edition of The Hellbender Press, Volume 7, Issue 7, November/December 2005. It was one of three included in that issue. Those reviews became the first installment of a column called “Nature’s Bookshelf.”

Saints at the River by Ron Rash

"He was dying, and the farm was dying with him." That was Maggie’s observation when she saw her father. As the protagonist in Ron Rash's novel, Maggie visits her home in South Carolina. Maggie is a newspaper photographer sent to her hometown to report on the attempt to recover a drowned girl’s body from a wild and scenic river. A hydraulic, a powerful eddy under a rock, had trapped the body. It seemed like the river’s spirit was unwilling to give up its dead.

The focus of Maggie's visit home is a hearing in which various parties debate the best course of action to recover the body. Many locals believe a dynamite stick in the eddy will free the body. Luke, a kayak guide, is in love with the river. He envies the dead girl, cradled in the water’s arms. Mr. Kowalski, a captain of industry from another state, is the dead girl’s father. He favors building a temporary dam to divert the water to allow rescuers to locate his daughter's body for proper burial. Meanwhile, a real estate developer closely watches the proceedings to see if any precedent-setting violation of the river's wild and scenic status occurs.

The characters are rugged and unyielding, like the wild river and the surrounding mountains. Interest groups in conflict reflect the conflict between Maggie and her father, which builds until a surprise ending releases the tension. In a way that would only be possible for a person who calls such a country home, Mr. Rash reveals these personalities in a tapestry of events best illustrated by his comments on Billy, a minor character introduced early in the book. This small portion of the book was well-received when Mr. Rash read it at the Conference on Southern Literature in Chattanooga in 2005.

"Billy had a degree in agriculture from Clemson University. His family owned the biggest apple orchard in the valley, but he had decided after college that his true calling was playing Snuffy Smith to fleece the tourists. He swore if he could find a cross-eyed boy who could play banjo, he'd stick that kid on the porch and increase his business 25 percent."

Saints at the River is Ron Rash's second novel. It joins his volumes of poetry and short stories as he rises to the top of Southern Literature.

Afterward

Ron Rash’s poetry and fiction are also frequently mentioned in discussions of nature literature here in Chattanooga. The landscape often becomes a character in his poetry, short fiction, and novels. I particularly love his novels One Foot in Eden, and The World Made Straight. Raising the Dead is my favorite of his poetry collections. His celebrated novel Serena is his best-known work. Rash received the O. Henry Award twice and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Eureka Mill, 2001, Hub City Press, poems.

These poems include the story of the author’s relatives who left the farm to work in a cotton mill and live in the mill town. One man could not find his house because they all looked the same, and he could not read. The address was no help to this illiterate man. After a company representative took him to the house, the gentleman threw his oldest pair of shoes onto the roof to always know which house was his.

Raising the Dead, 2002, Iris Press, poems.

Communities must be relocated as a reclamation dam fills a valley of water. I first imagined these poems grew out of the struggle of residents to hold fast to their land behind the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River, but it could happen anywhere that people lose their land for the construction project. The title poem came into being because even the cemeteries were relocated, with the exhumation of the bodies for reburial elsewhere.

One Foot in Eden, 2004, Picador

A small-town sheriff works to solve the disappearance/murder of one resident. The man’s mother accuses a neighbor. Meanwhile, a previously childless woman with an infertile husband has conceived and given birth to a child. This occurs as the water fills the valley behind a newly constructed dam. The story has content in common with the poems in Raising the Dead.

Chemistry and Other Stories, 2007, Picador

A chemistry teacher suffers a brain chemical imbalance and begins returning to the places he knew as a child. His son follows him one night, and mountain culture is revealed surprisingly.

The World Made Straight, 2007 Picador

A high school student gets into trouble when he discovers a crop of marijuana on a mountain hillside and harvests a few plants. A discredited teacher is the only person standing between him and the drug dealer’s revenge.

Serena, 2008, Ecco.

A timber baron brings a new wife home to his empire, but another woman is about to bear his child. The new wife, Serena, hunts with a golden eagle, falconry style. She holds a dark secret that unravels their world.

Rash has several additional poetry and short story collections that I have yet to read. He also has four more recent novels. Please have a look at his website for more information. https://www.ronrashwriter.com/home.