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Editorial Content for Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

If this was a perfect world, there would be a book by Ron Rash in the home of every reading family in the United States. Actually, given the man’s output --- five novels, four volumes of poetry and several short story collections --- a dedicated shelf would be more appropriate. I was reminded of how he towers above many of his contemporaries when I began reading SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE, a very generous collection of 34 of his short stories. Thirty-two are culled from previously published collections, while the remaining two are seeing publication in book form for the first time.

Rash is an author’s author. His stories, set in the American South along a timeline that begins during the Civil War and stretches through this afternoon, are shot through with a pristine and often deadly beauty that deserve to be preserved under glass as sterling examples to the fledgling writer and veteran author of how the task, duty and, yes, privilege of storytelling is properly done.

"Each and all of the selections in this volume should be savored slowly and reread. And if someone is looking to make a dramatic television anthology of one-episode stories, there are 34 here with which you can start."

Rash, whose work has earned multiple academic and literary awards, writes primarily of the poor. These are victims of whim and circumstance, and those whose lives are changed forever by a moment’s impulse built upon the shifting sands of poor judgment. The results, more often than not, are stark and unyielding. I have a well-thumbed edition of Rash’s NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, a collection of short stories that I always keep at the ready. A number of the stories in SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE are taken from that collection, including the title story, about the lives changed by a young girl’s fateful swim in a fast-moving creek. I have read the story about 15 times over the years, and did so again here. I know what happens, yet I kept hoping somehow that the result would be different this time --- and still screamed when it was not.

“Hard Times,” which opens this wondrous collection, is very faintly a mystery of sorts, and a tragedy from beginning to end. The last words of the story, which is set against the stark southern poverty of the Great Depression and deals with a seemingly minor theft, will haunt you until the end of your days. Time and again, Rash hits that sweet spot where language is most beautiful and events are most painful. He also throws in just a bit of lagniappe to set it off and make it memorable. Such is the case in “Lincolnites,” which, as the title might suggest, is set during the closing days of the U.S. Civil War. A woman waiting for her soldier husband to return home finds herself confronted with a rough and dangerous choice. What is going to happen is almost obvious; it is the manner in which it occurs, in addition to Rash’s wonderful telling of the tale, that sticks in one’s mind.

Not all of the stories are entirely tragic. Some are bittersweet. In “Love and Pain in the New South,” a husband and wife on the brink of divorce contemplate each other across a kitchen table, with divorce papers creating a barrier between them, that the husband tries one last time to breach. And there is a bit of droll humor in “The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth,” in which a shady used car dealer intersects advertising with Christ’s passion to create an almost unthinkable new low. Most of the stories, though, are distilled in sadness, particularly “The Corpse Bird,” in which the knowledge of folklore gleaned from a man’s past is utilized to save a little girl’s life. Possibly. We’ll never know.

Do I have a favorite story from SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE? I might answer “No.” That’s not entirely accurate; it keeps changing, and so quickly that there is no point in mentioning one over another. Each and all of the selections in this volume should be savored slowly and reread. And if someone is looking to make a dramatic television anthology of one-episode stories, there are 34 here with which you can start.

Teaser

SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE showcases Ron Rash’s artistry and craftsmanship in 30 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 Rash’s 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.

Promo

SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE showcases Ron Rash’s artistry and craftsmanship in 30 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 Rash’s 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.

About the Book

From the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling award-winning author of SERENA and THE COVE, 30 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 O'Connor 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 Rash’s work are universal, striking an emotional chord that resonates deep within each of our lives.

SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE showcases this revered master’s 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 Rash’s 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.