Ron Rash

This is another excellent novel by Ron Rash with highly developed characters. It centers around two brothers who live with their widowed mother and her controlling, manipulative father-in-law, the small town's doctor and autocrat.

The brothers, Eugene and Bill, are four years apart in age, with Bill excelling in academics and sports to his grandfather's delight. Eugene's strengths lie in the appreciation of literature and his own writing. They share a fear and dislike for their grandfather and a love for their gentle, dominated mother.

When Eugene is 16 and Bill is 20, they happen upon a girl named Ligeia, who is living with her right-wing aunt and uncle after being banished by her parents for embracing the counterculture movement of the late 1960s, drugs and sex. Unfortunately, both boys fall under her spell; however, Bill's is short-lived as he goes on to medical school and a successful career as a surgeon. Eugene's infatuation extends to stealing drugs from his grandfather's medical practice for Ligeia.

Fast forward nearly 50 years, and Eugene is a raging alcoholic who has lost everything that meant anything to him.
When a skeleton is found and identified as Ligeia, both brothers are under scrutiny.

I love the setting of Asheville and the references to Thomas Wolfe and his wonderful book, Look Homeward Angel. Ron Rash is a gifted writer, making the characters, the place and the "Age of Aquarius" come to life.… (altro)

I've been aware of Ron Rash for several years now as one of the foremost Southern writers of our time, and now I've finally managed to read one of his books, an early one I found in a used book store. And THE WORLD MADE STRAIGHT (2006) is, I have to tell you, one helluva ride, and presented in some of the most exquisite, poetic prose I've read in years. It is a very Southern coming of age tale, set in North Carolina, with its seventeen year-old protagonist, Travis Shelton, a high school dropout, who runs afoul of Carlton Toomey, a vicious local drug lord, is kicked out of his home by his tobacco farming father, and finds refuge in the rundown trailer home of Leonard Shuler, a disgraced former teacher who sells beer and pills to underage kids. Under Leonard's care and tutelage, and encouraged by a new girlfriend, Travis gradually begins to see a way out of the dead end life of gritty poverty which is so evident all around him. There is also an historical angle here, as Leonard, a very bookish type who came from a background as poor as Travis's, is studying the journals of a great-great grandfather, A doctor in the Civil War who was party to a local massacre that continues to resonate in smoldering resentment among the victims' families. And just when it seems Travis has turned his life around, one night of impulsive anger and violence brings him full circle to face the vengeful rage of Carlton Toomey, threatening to bring all of his dreams come crashing down. Indeed the last fifty-plus pages had me literally sitting up straight, on the edge of my recliner reading as fast as I could. I mean this Ron Rash really is GOOD! Fortunately I have another of his books, SERENA, waiting on my pile. (And, incidentally, both this book and SERENA have been adapted to films too.) Because now that I've finally "discovered" this guy, I know I'll definitely be seeking out his other stuff. This one gets my very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (altro)