Above the waterfall

Ron Rash, 1953-

Book - 2015

Enduring the mistakes and tragedies that have shaped their lives in contemporary Appalachia, a sheriff on the brink of retirement and a haunted park ranger confront violent forces when an elderly local is accused of poisoning a trout stream.

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FICTION/Rash, Ron
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Subjects
Published
New York : HarperCollins 2015.
Language
English
Main Author
Ron Rash, 1953- (author)
Physical Description
252 pages
ISBN
9780062349316
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Les, a sheriff in a small Appalachian town, is only 51, yet he's ready to retire as meth labs poison his neighbors and beloved countryside. With just a few weeks left before his departure, Les, a law officer not entirely on the up-and-up, finds himself confronted by two volatile cases with deep personal connections. The investigations involve thorny conflicts over land and livelihood as a fancy resort abundantly stocks a stream so that tourists can fish, while impoverished locals face No Trespassing signs and surveillance cameras. A loner ever since his early marriage failed, Les isn't sure how to characterize his relationship with Becky, a profoundly haunted survivor of a childhood school shooting who became a park ranger enthralled by nature. The word that comes to Les' mind is accomplices. Rash (Something Rich and Strange, 2014), a best-selling writer honored for his transporting storytelling and his lyricism, channels his love of poetry through Becky, who always carries a notebook and is steeped in the ravishing poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the inspiration for the novel's enrapturing rhythms and glinting descriptions. Combining suspense with acute observations and flashing insights, Rash tells a seductive and disquieting tale about our intrinsic attachment to and disastrous abuse of the land and our betrayal of our best selves.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Rash's (Nothing Gold Can Stay) widely celebrated style lends his Southern Gothic-tinged books a suppleness that verges on prose poetry and, in the case of his new novel, elevates a small-town noir story. Les is a gentle sheriff on the verge of retirement in meth-wracked Appalachia, troubled by the petty rivalries that tear at his North Carolina community and his uncertain love affair with park ranger Becky Lytle. Following a nightmarish raid on a meth house, Les becomes drawn into the case of Gerald Blackwelder, a local eccentric accused of poisoning a trout stream in a land dispute. Gerald's only advocate is Becky-but as a one-time associate of an infamous ecoterrorist named Richard Pelfrey, she's been wrong before. Operating on opposing sides of an intrigue that touches on family quarrels and sins of the past, Les and Becky unearth a caper heavy in rich Southern crime and violence, one that's a cut above the rest. Rash writes prose so beautifully that plot and character can come to seem like mere adornments, and certain touches-such the poems Les writes in his off-hours-feel like showcases. But there's no denying Rash's grasp of the North Carolina landscape and its reflection in the oft-tortured souls of its denizens, making this novel one of his most successful ventures into poetic humanism. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review

In a rugged, mountainous North Carolina county, Les is the sheriff with just a few weeks before retirement. His tenure has been marked with the sorrows of the country people whom he's known since birth, like old-timer Gerald, who burned down his son's home after the boy was killed overseas. Lately, Gerald has been wandering on the property of a downstream resort, to the frustration of the resort's manager. When someone pours kerosene into the water, poisoning the fish stocked for the resort's guests, Gerald seems to be the culprit. It doesn't sit right with Les or with Becky, a woman with a traumatic past who has befriended Gerald. As Les, who has his own demons, attempts to solve the mystery of the poisoned stream, his investigation is complicated by the interlacing bonds of a community long insulated from outside intrusion. The whodunit here is not terribly confounding and is secondary to the intricate relationship of the characters and the beauty of the surrounding mountains. As there are no teen protagonists to pull young readers in, the novel's chief appeal is the eloquent voice of nature, expressed by a moonlight view of black-eyed Susans or the movements of a trout. Rarely will readers find such gorgeous poetry in the guise of a novel. VERDICT Teens may be more readily attracted to Rash's 2012 novel, The Cove (Ecco), also set in the mountains of North Carolina but featuring youthful characters.-Diane Colson, Nashville Public Library © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

For his sixth novel, Rash (The Cove, 2012, etc.) plays a park ranger's past traumas against a sheriff's present crises. When Becky Shytle was in elementary school in Virginia, a gunman invaded her school, killing the teacher who had escorted her to safety. For months afterward she couldn't speak, finding her voice only in the safe haven of her grandparents' farm. Later, as a park ranger, a relationship ended badly when her boyfriend became an eco-terrorist and was killed. That time, it was the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who saved her soul, along with the anonymous cave painters of Lascaux. In an unnamed town in the North Carolina mountains, Rash's invariable setting, Becky, now the superintendent of a state park, has found a kindred spirit in the sheriff, Les. He too turned inward after his wife's suicide attempt led to an exceptionally painful divorce. Les is 51, retiring after 30 years' hard grind; just two more items of business left. The first is a meth bust, so nightmarish a rookie officer quits on the spot. (Rash on meth-heads is always riveting.) The second involves the poisoning of trout at a fishing resort. The prime suspect is elderly landowner Gerald Blackwelder, a good man but ornery and Becky's staunch supporter in all things environmental. She alternates as narrator with Les; her Hopkins-infused musings are a counterpoint to Les' action-oriented segments. There are six players in the poisoning case, so Les has his work cut out for him, and this storyline takes over the novel. An ordinary whodunit seems to have elbowed aside a more spacious novel about characters whose deep affinities with the natural world, and its interpreters, sustain them among unremitting man-made violence. For once this major American writer appears, uncharacteristically, to have veered off course. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.