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Nothing Gold Can Stay: Stories
From Ron Rash, PEN / Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Serena, comes a new collection of unforgettable stories set in Appalachia that focuses on the lives of those haunted by violence and tenderness, hope and fear—spanning the Civil War to the present day.
The darkness of Ron Rash’s work contrasts with its unexpected sensitivity and stark beauty in a manner that could only be accomplished by this master of the short story form.
Nothing Gold Can Stay includes 14 stories, including Rash’s “The Trusty,” which first appeared in The New Yorker.
The darkness of Ron Rash’s work contrasts with its unexpected sensitivity and stark beauty in a manner that could only be accomplished by this master of the short story form.
Nothing Gold Can Stay includes 14 stories, including Rash’s “The Trusty,” which first appeared in The New Yorker.
239 pages, Hardcover
First published February 19, 2013
About the author
Ron Rash
57 books2,010 followersRon Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist and New York Times bestselling novel, Serena, in addition to three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; three collections of poems; and four collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O.Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.
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November 7, 2024
The title of Ron Rash’s fifth short story collection, Nothing Gold Can Stay, comes from the chestnut poem, with the same title, by Robert Frost. two three poems I have memorized in my life (the others being Sandberg’s Fog and a classic limerick having to do with Nantucket, thanks for the reminder, Steve), and one that has certainly informed my world view. (cheery sort that I am) That notion may or may not have had merit personally, but for most of the characters who inhabit the fourteen tales in Rash’s Appalachian landscape, that glow of youthful vivacity will soon tarnish.
Characters here cover a wide age range, from middle-teens rattling their social cages to old friends in their sunset years, appreciating what they have had and cherishing what remains, from late teens struggling to find their way to a better life to others descending into criminality. They tend toward the edges, young or old with only a smattering in between, and those in the middle do not fare any better than those at the perimeter. Rash’s time line is likewise broad, with a couple of stories set circa Civil War, one in the 1960s, and most being reasonably contemporary.
Overall, these stories are about the coexistence of dark and light. In the title piece, two wastrel boys stand with one foot in the world of perdition and the other in a heavenly idyll. Or maybe it is only a dream of light, as hopes are raised several times in these stories, only to be melted down. People here feel trapped, by their past, their circumstances, their weakness. But there are also elements here of incredible love and self-sacrifice, enough to move one (ok, mushy old me) to tears. Life is not wonderful in Rash’s world. Kids want to escape, move on, find something better. But the existence into which they were born drags them under like the rough river in Something Rich and Strange. How much of who we are is accounted for by the circumstances in which we were born, the prison of class? Quite a bit.
So, life’s a bitch and then you die. Have a nice day. But wait, there’s more. Sometimes, there are pieces of life that hang on to their gloss. Two concerned parents live for a video call from their daughter in the service, every 26 days, a shining moment. Two old friends relish their lifelong friendship and enjoy the soft joys of the now. A young girl finds peace and beauty in a very unlikely place. And there is beauty in Rash’s world, even when its vibrant presence is used as a contrast to the living death of what may be a pointless existence.
Gold, as a thematic seam, runs throughout, with actual gold in the title piece, a supposed heart of gold in another, golden hair in a third, pursuit of riches in a fourth, a gold coin in a fifth and so on. I don’t want to lay claim to all the nuggets, so will leave the rest of the lode for those with a miner’s inclination, or if you don’t care for it, a panner’s.
My personal favorite was Night Hawks, clearly inspired by the painting, in which a woman, affected by the social impact of her appearance as a kid, struggles to find her place in the world. Must she be limited by an externality that is no longer there?
Rash inlays a few literary references in most of the stories, ways maybe to mark a trail in his woods. From A Catcher in the Rye to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, from Chekov to Darwin and plenty more. But we know whose woods these are and the paths are clear enough.
It may be that nothing gold can stay, but whatever Ron Rash writes is 24 karat and will shine for a very long time, further burnishing his sterling reputation. He seems to breathe in life, landscape and atmosphere and exhale literature. No silver medals for this collection. Only the top prize will do.
===============================THE STORIES
In The Trusty, a grifter in a chain gang plans an escape with a newly met, unhappy Mrs.
In Nothing Gold Can Stay, two wastrel boys, stand with one foot in the world of perdition and the other in a heavenly idyll.
Rash introduces a bit of magic in Something Rich and Strange, in which a diver, sent to retrieve the body of a drowned girl, has a vision.
Where the Map Ends pays a visit to the Civil War era, offering a bit of good news, followed by bad.
A Servant of History is a darkly comedic look at how a knowledge of one’s history might come in handy when far from home
Twenty Six Days is the time two working class parents have to wait between skype video calls from their daughter in a war zone. They must endure the insensitivity of some professorial sorts as they constantly fear for her life.
A Sort of Miracle contrasts two types of foolishness as a condescending accountant takes his layabout brothers in law into a national park to try to kill a bear.
Those Who are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven tells of how fragile is the path out of hopelessness, even when confronted with love. A smart, ambitious young man tries to bring his meth-addicted girlfriend out of her low state.
The Magic Bus contrasts extremes, a 60s era carefree sort of freedom on the one hand and a controlling, narrow farm life on the other as a teenage girl is tempted by the promise of escape.
The Dowry tells of a post Civil War town in which there is nothing a young Union vet can do to satisfy the Confederate father of his beloved that he is worthy of his daughter’s hand, the father holding a grudge from his having lost an arm in the war. A town cleric finds a surprising solution, in an act of great love.
The Woman at the Pond paints a picture of despair touching the life of a high school senior, without quite penetrating
Night Hawks was one of my favorites, hitting a bit close to home as it does. A young woman considers decisions in her life, informed by elements of her past that were beyond her control. There is a discussion here of the famous Hopper painting. In case you are interested, here is a site with the image and a look at where the actual location may have been.
Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out is a story of long-friendship, loss, rebirth and the value of what remains. Very moving
Publication Date - trade paperback - 5/11/14
=============================EXTRA STUFF
February 16 , 2013 - NPRs Scott Simon's lovely interview with Ron Rash
February 22, 2013 - Boston Globe review
February 27, 2013 - Janet Maslin's review in the NY Times
March 1, 2013 - I found this review, complete with some fun turns of phrase, in
The Charlotte Observer
November 19, 2013 - Nothing Gold is named one of the ten best fiction books of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews
June 6, 2017 - I was alerted by GR friend Linda to the following from April 2017 - WCU's Ron Rash wins Guggenheim Fellowship - Rash deserves all the recognition there is, he is a national treasure.
Nature’s first green is goldIt is one of only
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf’s a flower
But only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay
Characters here cover a wide age range, from middle-teens rattling their social cages to old friends in their sunset years, appreciating what they have had and cherishing what remains, from late teens struggling to find their way to a better life to others descending into criminality. They tend toward the edges, young or old with only a smattering in between, and those in the middle do not fare any better than those at the perimeter. Rash’s time line is likewise broad, with a couple of stories set circa Civil War, one in the 1960s, and most being reasonably contemporary.
Overall, these stories are about the coexistence of dark and light. In the title piece, two wastrel boys stand with one foot in the world of perdition and the other in a heavenly idyll. Or maybe it is only a dream of light, as hopes are raised several times in these stories, only to be melted down. People here feel trapped, by their past, their circumstances, their weakness. But there are also elements here of incredible love and self-sacrifice, enough to move one (ok, mushy old me) to tears. Life is not wonderful in Rash’s world. Kids want to escape, move on, find something better. But the existence into which they were born drags them under like the rough river in Something Rich and Strange. How much of who we are is accounted for by the circumstances in which we were born, the prison of class? Quite a bit.
Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they’d died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they left behind.Some seek to leave the imprisonment of literal slavery and one the manacles of actual prison.
So, life’s a bitch and then you die. Have a nice day. But wait, there’s more. Sometimes, there are pieces of life that hang on to their gloss. Two concerned parents live for a video call from their daughter in the service, every 26 days, a shining moment. Two old friends relish their lifelong friendship and enjoy the soft joys of the now. A young girl finds peace and beauty in a very unlikely place. And there is beauty in Rash’s world, even when its vibrant presence is used as a contrast to the living death of what may be a pointless existence.
The OC’s coating starts to dissolve. Its bitterness fills my mouth but I want the taste to linger a few more moments. As we cross back over the river, a small light glows on the far bank, a lantern or a campfire. Out beyond it, fish move in the current, alive in that other world.Sometimes there is even beauty in death.
Days passed. Rain came often, long rains that made every fold of ridge land a tributary and merged earth and water into a deep orange-yellow rush. Banks disappeared as the river reached out and dragged them under. But that was only surface. In the undercut all remained quiet and still, the girl’s transformation unrushed, gentle. Crayfish and minnows unknitted flesh from bone, attentive to loose threads.The greatest, for me, was the beauty of a lifetime friendship told in hushed tones as an old veterinarian nestles in the warmth of a moment of serenity.
Carson was always comfortable with solitude. As a boy, he’d loved to roam the woods, loved how quiet the woods could be. If deep enough in them he wouldn’t even hear the wind. But the best was in the barn. He’d climb up in the loft and lean back against a hay bale, then watch the sunlight begin to lean through the loft window, brightening the spilled straw. When the light was at its apex, the loft shimmered as though coated with golden foil. Dust motes speckled the air like midges. The only sound would be underneath, a calf restless in a stall, a horse eating from a feed bag. Carson had always felt an aloneness in those moments, but never in a sad way.These being short stories, there must be an O Henry ghost wandering around somewhere, and if you anticipate this you will not be disappointed. There are a number of ironic, even darkly comic endings, and certainly some surprising ones.
Gold, as a thematic seam, runs throughout, with actual gold in the title piece, a supposed heart of gold in another, golden hair in a third, pursuit of riches in a fourth, a gold coin in a fifth and so on. I don’t want to lay claim to all the nuggets, so will leave the rest of the lode for those with a miner’s inclination, or if you don’t care for it, a panner’s.
My personal favorite was Night Hawks, clearly inspired by the painting, in which a woman, affected by the social impact of her appearance as a kid, struggles to find her place in the world. Must she be limited by an externality that is no longer there?
Rash inlays a few literary references in most of the stories, ways maybe to mark a trail in his woods. From A Catcher in the Rye to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, from Chekov to Darwin and plenty more. But we know whose woods these are and the paths are clear enough.
It may be that nothing gold can stay, but whatever Ron Rash writes is 24 karat and will shine for a very long time, further burnishing his sterling reputation. He seems to breathe in life, landscape and atmosphere and exhale literature. No silver medals for this collection. Only the top prize will do.
===============================THE STORIES
In The Trusty, a grifter in a chain gang plans an escape with a newly met, unhappy Mrs.
In Nothing Gold Can Stay, two wastrel boys, stand with one foot in the world of perdition and the other in a heavenly idyll.
Rash introduces a bit of magic in Something Rich and Strange, in which a diver, sent to retrieve the body of a drowned girl, has a vision.
Where the Map Ends pays a visit to the Civil War era, offering a bit of good news, followed by bad.
A Servant of History is a darkly comedic look at how a knowledge of one’s history might come in handy when far from home
Twenty Six Days is the time two working class parents have to wait between skype video calls from their daughter in a war zone. They must endure the insensitivity of some professorial sorts as they constantly fear for her life.
A Sort of Miracle contrasts two types of foolishness as a condescending accountant takes his layabout brothers in law into a national park to try to kill a bear.
Those Who are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven tells of how fragile is the path out of hopelessness, even when confronted with love. A smart, ambitious young man tries to bring his meth-addicted girlfriend out of her low state.
The Magic Bus contrasts extremes, a 60s era carefree sort of freedom on the one hand and a controlling, narrow farm life on the other as a teenage girl is tempted by the promise of escape.
The Dowry tells of a post Civil War town in which there is nothing a young Union vet can do to satisfy the Confederate father of his beloved that he is worthy of his daughter’s hand, the father holding a grudge from his having lost an arm in the war. A town cleric finds a surprising solution, in an act of great love.
The Woman at the Pond paints a picture of despair touching the life of a high school senior, without quite penetrating
Night Hawks was one of my favorites, hitting a bit close to home as it does. A young woman considers decisions in her life, informed by elements of her past that were beyond her control. There is a discussion here of the famous Hopper painting. In case you are interested, here is a site with the image and a look at where the actual location may have been.
Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out is a story of long-friendship, loss, rebirth and the value of what remains. Very moving
Publication Date - trade paperback - 5/11/14
=============================EXTRA STUFF
February 16 , 2013 - NPRs Scott Simon's lovely interview with Ron Rash
February 22, 2013 - Boston Globe review
February 27, 2013 - Janet Maslin's review in the NY Times
March 1, 2013 - I found this review, complete with some fun turns of phrase, in
The Charlotte Observer
November 19, 2013 - Nothing Gold is named one of the ten best fiction books of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews
June 6, 2017 - I was alerted by GR friend Linda to the following from April 2017 - WCU's Ron Rash wins Guggenheim Fellowship - Rash deserves all the recognition there is, he is a national treasure.
April 3, 2019
man, ron rash is good.
of all the people who write that appalachia-desperation stuff i eat up with a spoon, his writing is just head and shoulders above his peers. he is both muscular and fragile, with a blink-and-you-miss-it quietude. for short stories to have this much depth and impact that they simply haunt the reader...it is quite impressive.
these stories span time and theme, although there are elements that recur: escape, regret, nostalgia, yearning...the typical themes of this kind of literature, to be sure, but rash is just so adept at handling them, they feel fresh and new in his hands.
they are full of people trying to improve their situations, frequently by cutting corners: gambling, stealing, murdering, running away, but this is not a collection of stories about shiftless criminals. there are also stories of great tenderness and sacrifices made for children, for congregants, for former lovers... and even the stories about people who make questionable moral decisions are so sympathetically written, it fills the brain-heart. you mostly want these characters to succeed, to break out of their situations. there is no judgment here; rash is a storyteller, not a moralist. he is a quiet observer and creator.
my favorite stories were cherokee, where the map ends, a servant of history, a sort of miracle, those who are dead are only now forgiven, and three a.m. and the stars were out. but the magic bus has such a great ending line, which can kind of stand as a summary of the collection:
not really a spoiler, but some people are sensitive to that kind of thing.
will wrote a much better review for this book, so you should go read his instead.
and in his review, he quotes this passage, which also struck me when i was reading it:
Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they’d died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they left behind.
which reminded me so much of sweat by oingo boingo (although i prefer country sweat, which doesn't seem to be on the youtube) i just love stories about the destruction of the promise of youth and the reality of failure. it feels familiar, for some reason. dink! (that is the sound of me ruefully forced-grinning and my dimple popping)
why no five stars, brissette?
i dunno. maybe i am being an exhausted retail-worker. let's call it four and a half. it's all arbitrary, anyway.
you can read this in march. unless you are laima, and then you can read it when i send it to you.
come to my blog!
of all the people who write that appalachia-desperation stuff i eat up with a spoon, his writing is just head and shoulders above his peers. he is both muscular and fragile, with a blink-and-you-miss-it quietude. for short stories to have this much depth and impact that they simply haunt the reader...it is quite impressive.
these stories span time and theme, although there are elements that recur: escape, regret, nostalgia, yearning...the typical themes of this kind of literature, to be sure, but rash is just so adept at handling them, they feel fresh and new in his hands.
they are full of people trying to improve their situations, frequently by cutting corners: gambling, stealing, murdering, running away, but this is not a collection of stories about shiftless criminals. there are also stories of great tenderness and sacrifices made for children, for congregants, for former lovers... and even the stories about people who make questionable moral decisions are so sympathetically written, it fills the brain-heart. you mostly want these characters to succeed, to break out of their situations. there is no judgment here; rash is a storyteller, not a moralist. he is a quiet observer and creator.
my favorite stories were cherokee, where the map ends, a servant of history, a sort of miracle, those who are dead are only now forgiven, and three a.m. and the stars were out. but the magic bus has such a great ending line, which can kind of stand as a summary of the collection:
not really a spoiler, but some people are sensitive to that kind of thing.
will wrote a much better review for this book, so you should go read his instead.
and in his review, he quotes this passage, which also struck me when i was reading it:
Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they’d died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they left behind.
which reminded me so much of sweat by oingo boingo (although i prefer country sweat, which doesn't seem to be on the youtube) i just love stories about the destruction of the promise of youth and the reality of failure. it feels familiar, for some reason. dink! (that is the sound of me ruefully forced-grinning and my dimple popping)
why no five stars, brissette?
i dunno. maybe i am being an exhausted retail-worker. let's call it four and a half. it's all arbitrary, anyway.
you can read this in march. unless you are laima, and then you can read it when i send it to you.
August 2, 2015
What is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface.
There is darkness lurking in the mountains and hills of the human heart. Darkness that can bring a person to their knees, to commit unspeakable acts, darkness enough to drown a life in meaningless oblivion. What is more moving, more deathly beautiful, than to embrace these dying embers into prose to swallow like a bitter pill. ‘Every junky is like a setting sun,’ sang Neil Young about life that is both beautiful but painful to look at long; this collection embodies such sentiments. Ron Rash’s Nothing Gold Can Stay offers portraits of lives descending into the malestrom or seeking to bring their heads above water for breath. These stories are set primarily in Appalachia, but might as well be in limbo or hell. We live in a harsh world where many are born with their luck already drained in towns like a ravenous quicksand, and Ron Rash brings a wide variety of damned souls, from civil war soldiers to present day teenagers, to beauty with clear cut words and quiet demeanor that make them shine like even the brightest of stars.
Jody had watched other classmates... enter such a life with an impatient fatalism.
The title of the collection comes from Robert Frost’s poem of the same name:
Rash’s prose is a serene and crystal-clear river, where all the gems and trout can be seen from the surface. The river flows smoothly onward, lulling us in its wake. However, these are rivers that tease the ocean and refuse the delta, often avoiding direct mention of the dark heart at their center. Always writing in a circuitous manner around the dark impetus or past of the story builds great tension and keeps the story moving by way of mystery, but is also overused and becomes a bit of its own cliche when the stories are read in bulk. It occasionally feels like pulling teeth. The language is simple, economic and straightforward, and while there are few outstanding moments it is bathed in a tender humility that easily breaches the fortitutes of the reader's heart. Each story tends to end with a surprise, bleak twist. While I personally enjoy a depraved, gut-wrenching ending, these somehow feel a bit contrite and expected when reading straight through. It has a feeling that a word should exist for—’twee’ isn’t the right word but it comes close, perhaps the opposite of twee with the same shuddering effect—where the bleakness is almost too cutesy and forced. The high school sweetheart meth story has the collegiate boyfriend throw his future away to stay and do meth just to rot away with the one he loves. It’s charming enough but also eye-rolling especially as nothing in the story foreshadows such a drastic and depraved change of heart and Jody spends the whole story trying to drag her from the meth house to his college town. The Trustee, however, is a wonderful example on how the dark twist ending works to the stories benefit as it really drives the memory of the tale deep into the reader where they will never forget it.
What truly rescues Rash from mediocrity and propels him into brilliance is his keen insight into his own strengths, which he mines for pure gold. Cherokee is a prime example of this. The story follows a couple on their desperate attempt to save their Ford Ranger (I had a particular empathy for this story as my own first vehicle was a forest green, 1996 Ford Ranger which I lovingly dubbed The Danger Ranger to embrace all its flaws, dents, cracked windshield and the way it brought me to truly love music note for note in all its intricacies as the volume would constantly turn itself to max regardless of any finagling with the dials) by gambling all they own at a casino. The couple is like many of us, and many of the other Rash characters, who spend their entire days working themselves into exhaustion yet have nothing to show for it. The gambling story is rather passionless and boring, as is the whole story to be honest, not like the brow-sweating manic feel the reader is forced to feel when reading a similar scene in Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. Dostoevsky has you clenching your teeth along with his narrator so intensely they may burst free from your skull, but here the rise and fall of their winnings has minimal emotion attached to it. That may be the point, perhaps, but more importantly is Rash’s ability to convey the humanity of association with those around the couple during this scene. There is a Metallica t-shirt sporting schmuck who thrives when they lose and condescends them when they cash out ahead for not ‘having balls’, and a crippled veteran who buys them a hotel room and makes a soulful connection with them. These two are an incredible Devil-and-Angel-on-your-shoulder metaphor, especially as the angel character isn’t necessarily a salvation, but a peaceful resting place that still holds the prospects of self-damnation if one isn’t careful. It is no surprise to anyone, especially the reader, when in the morning beerlight the man is found in the grips of a hazardous gambling addiction. We don’t live in a world of certain salvation, only minor moments of serenity, and we must not give in to the ease of temptation that will be our undoing.
While Ron Rash may fall into his own cliches, he has a gift of economy and self-assurance that paves the road to literary enjoyment. I strongly urge any reader to walk this path, though it is beset on all sides by the tyranny, evil, and apathy of what could have been good women and men. Crisp, clear and contemplative, Rash explores the darkness in the hills of Appalachia as well as the human heart and brings out pure gold, but the kind that can stay.
3.5/5
She was less of what she had been, the blue rubbed from her eyes, flesh freed from the chandelier of bone. He touched what once had been a hand. The river whispered to him that it would not be long now.
There is darkness lurking in the mountains and hills of the human heart. Darkness that can bring a person to their knees, to commit unspeakable acts, darkness enough to drown a life in meaningless oblivion. What is more moving, more deathly beautiful, than to embrace these dying embers into prose to swallow like a bitter pill. ‘Every junky is like a setting sun,’ sang Neil Young about life that is both beautiful but painful to look at long; this collection embodies such sentiments. Ron Rash’s Nothing Gold Can Stay offers portraits of lives descending into the malestrom or seeking to bring their heads above water for breath. These stories are set primarily in Appalachia, but might as well be in limbo or hell. We live in a harsh world where many are born with their luck already drained in towns like a ravenous quicksand, and Ron Rash brings a wide variety of damned souls, from civil war soldiers to present day teenagers, to beauty with clear cut words and quiet demeanor that make them shine like even the brightest of stars.
Jody had watched other classmates... enter such a life with an impatient fatalism.
The title of the collection comes from Robert Frost’s poem of the same name:
Nature’s first green is gold,Each story is true to this notion and we watch fleeting lives blown about by the winds, nearly powerless to the forces around it, or perhaps not unable but unwilling to resist. There is a refreshing versatility to his tales, with varied faces set over a wide timeline that demonstrates the common thread of humanity in all of us. What better a metaphor for the fragility of our existence in the storm of life than the succinct and haunting Something Rich and Strange where a young girl drowns in a raging river, intending only to take a few steps in yet overcome by the current.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
[H]er mouth and nose open and the lungs explode in pain and then the pain is gone as bright colors shatter around her like glass shards, and she remembers her sixth-grade science class, the gurgle of the aquarium at the back of the room, the smell of chalk dust that morning the teacher held a prism out the window so it might fill with color, and she has a final, beautiful thought - that she is now inside that prism and knows something even the teacher does not know, that the prism's colors are voices, voices that swirl around her head like a crown, and at that moment her arms and legs she did not even know were flailing cease and she becomes part of the river.We all become victims to the river of time, our lives washed away forever. The response by the diver who finds her body is us, the reader, seeing a corpse stripped of flesh but a testament of beauty and serenity having lived, lost and vanished. Or perhaps it is, as in Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven, the sight of a former love lost in the grips of a meth addiction, a path taken instead of college and escape from the clutches of a toxic town as was the liferaft taken by her boyfriend, ‘he was unsure which unsettled him more, how much beauty she’d lost or how much remained.’ So much life is left in these people, so much possibility and love, yet the spark is fading and often of their own undoing. Perhaps the bleakest of moments are those where all shreds of decency are tossed aside for the sake of survival, such as the title story where two young men rob their former employer to cash in on another fix. His transgressions as a poor boss, or the fact that he is dead and rotting in his own home, serve to justify their actions instead of humanize them all. Rash reaches for the heart and often punches you in the gut on the way there, and we are all better for it.
Rash’s prose is a serene and crystal-clear river, where all the gems and trout can be seen from the surface. The river flows smoothly onward, lulling us in its wake. However, these are rivers that tease the ocean and refuse the delta, often avoiding direct mention of the dark heart at their center. Always writing in a circuitous manner around the dark impetus or past of the story builds great tension and keeps the story moving by way of mystery, but is also overused and becomes a bit of its own cliche when the stories are read in bulk. It occasionally feels like pulling teeth. The language is simple, economic and straightforward, and while there are few outstanding moments it is bathed in a tender humility that easily breaches the fortitutes of the reader's heart. Each story tends to end with a surprise, bleak twist. While I personally enjoy a depraved, gut-wrenching ending, these somehow feel a bit contrite and expected when reading straight through. It has a feeling that a word should exist for—’twee’ isn’t the right word but it comes close, perhaps the opposite of twee with the same shuddering effect—where the bleakness is almost too cutesy and forced. The high school sweetheart meth story has the collegiate boyfriend throw his future away to stay and do meth just to rot away with the one he loves. It’s charming enough but also eye-rolling especially as nothing in the story foreshadows such a drastic and depraved change of heart and Jody spends the whole story trying to drag her from the meth house to his college town. The Trustee, however, is a wonderful example on how the dark twist ending works to the stories benefit as it really drives the memory of the tale deep into the reader where they will never forget it.
What truly rescues Rash from mediocrity and propels him into brilliance is his keen insight into his own strengths, which he mines for pure gold. Cherokee is a prime example of this. The story follows a couple on their desperate attempt to save their Ford Ranger (I had a particular empathy for this story as my own first vehicle was a forest green, 1996 Ford Ranger which I lovingly dubbed The Danger Ranger to embrace all its flaws, dents, cracked windshield and the way it brought me to truly love music note for note in all its intricacies as the volume would constantly turn itself to max regardless of any finagling with the dials) by gambling all they own at a casino. The couple is like many of us, and many of the other Rash characters, who spend their entire days working themselves into exhaustion yet have nothing to show for it. The gambling story is rather passionless and boring, as is the whole story to be honest, not like the brow-sweating manic feel the reader is forced to feel when reading a similar scene in Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. Dostoevsky has you clenching your teeth along with his narrator so intensely they may burst free from your skull, but here the rise and fall of their winnings has minimal emotion attached to it. That may be the point, perhaps, but more importantly is Rash’s ability to convey the humanity of association with those around the couple during this scene. There is a Metallica t-shirt sporting schmuck who thrives when they lose and condescends them when they cash out ahead for not ‘having balls’, and a crippled veteran who buys them a hotel room and makes a soulful connection with them. These two are an incredible Devil-and-Angel-on-your-shoulder metaphor, especially as the angel character isn’t necessarily a salvation, but a peaceful resting place that still holds the prospects of self-damnation if one isn’t careful. It is no surprise to anyone, especially the reader, when in the morning beerlight the man is found in the grips of a hazardous gambling addiction. We don’t live in a world of certain salvation, only minor moments of serenity, and we must not give in to the ease of temptation that will be our undoing.
While Ron Rash may fall into his own cliches, he has a gift of economy and self-assurance that paves the road to literary enjoyment. I strongly urge any reader to walk this path, though it is beset on all sides by the tyranny, evil, and apathy of what could have been good women and men. Crisp, clear and contemplative, Rash explores the darkness in the hills of Appalachia as well as the human heart and brings out pure gold, but the kind that can stay.
3.5/5
She was less of what she had been, the blue rubbed from her eyes, flesh freed from the chandelier of bone. He touched what once had been a hand. The river whispered to him that it would not be long now.
May 14, 2014
One of the reasons short fiction is my favorite genre is the requisite economy of words an author must employ. A virtuoso can make you feel all of the unsaid things; fleeting djinns seen with peripheral vision that may/not be there. My solid measuring stick of fantastic writing is reaching the end of a story and getting that unsettled just what the fuck is going on here feeling - a sensation that can come from something genre-stretching from Ben Marcus as much as a writer penning a piece in a classical style. Ron Rash is one of the latter and one of the most talented writers in the genre today.
Rash's southern roots show in all of the pieces in this collection - and that's a good thing. Those djinns aren't hidden from him - he can write a heartbreaking piece set in the shadow of the Civil War as well as a modern day love story centered around meth. He could teach a doctorate course on how to write dialogue. And then there are those passages that catch the reader unaware. The eyes mist, the throat lumps:
Maybe it's because the picture's a little blurry, but one second I see something in Kerrie's face that reminds me of when she was a baby, then something else reminds me of her in first grade and after that high school. It's like the slightest flicker or shift makes ones show more than the other. But that's not it, I realize. All those different faces are inside me, not on the screen, and I can't help thinking that if I remember every one, enough of Kerrie's alive inside me to keep safe the part that isn't.
That's from the story "Twenty-Six Days" in this collection; a mother's thoughts after a Skype video chat with a daughter deployed in Iraq. Any reader that comes across this paragraph that has ever held these fragmented images of a child far away, rarely seen, can understand exactly what Rash is talking about (regardless of the situation surrounding that part of us that is growing older). This is what we talk about when we talk about love.
Rash is about to become so very much more famous when the movie Serena is released later this year, and he deserves all of the attention he will get from penning a great novel that became that movie. But it is the short stories that have me in his orbit. I entreat you to sample his work. You won't be disappointed.
May 22, 2016
Pretty dark short stories, Rash' style.
Rash is a master in telling short stories. I think he might be even outshining himself compared to his novels. He can set a scene without too many words like no other, and eventhough many of his characters are just doomed to begin with, still they manage to enlighten their lives (and the reader's) a little bit, just to be thrown back into the abyss right after again. Some dark humor comes into play, but most often it is the despair, hope or love of the characters that comes through.
Rash is a master in telling short stories. I think he might be even outshining himself compared to his novels. He can set a scene without too many words like no other, and eventhough many of his characters are just doomed to begin with, still they manage to enlighten their lives (and the reader's) a little bit, just to be thrown back into the abyss right after again. Some dark humor comes into play, but most often it is the despair, hope or love of the characters that comes through.
May 5, 2021
I’ve been meaning to catch up with Appalachian writer Ron Rash for some time and I finally settled on this collection of fourteen short stories, all set in the part of the world he knows best. There’s quite a range of tales here but many are melancholy in nature and happy endings are pretty hard to find. However, humour is also sprinkled through some of the stories, most notably in A Sort of Miracle in which one man’s desire to rid himself of a couple of pesky relatives who’ve parked themselves in his home leads to a bizarre outcome.
In Cherokee a young, hard up couple decide to visit a casino to gamble money they can’t afford to lose in the hope of achieving a big win. This is probably my favourite as I really identified with the hopes and fears of this young couple. Another I really liked is The Dowry in which an aging ex-Confederate Colonel, a veteran of the Civil War, refuses to agree to the marriage of his daughter to a former Union soldier due to the loss of one of his hands during the fighting. Sometimes the stories have a punchy, surprising conclusion, but more often the reader is simply left to muse over a moment in the lives of the characters he’s created.
As is the case in pretty much every short story collection I’ve ever picked up, some really grabbed me, a few passed me by and the rest contained something of interest, even if they’ll probably not stay long in my memory. Rash definitely has a recognisable voice and though the themes and timeframes changed from story to story I felt that I could always detect an undercurrent of cynicism and fatalism in his writing. I liked his style, these stories made me think and I expect I’ll be back for more from this gifted wordsmith.
In Cherokee a young, hard up couple decide to visit a casino to gamble money they can’t afford to lose in the hope of achieving a big win. This is probably my favourite as I really identified with the hopes and fears of this young couple. Another I really liked is The Dowry in which an aging ex-Confederate Colonel, a veteran of the Civil War, refuses to agree to the marriage of his daughter to a former Union soldier due to the loss of one of his hands during the fighting. Sometimes the stories have a punchy, surprising conclusion, but more often the reader is simply left to muse over a moment in the lives of the characters he’s created.
As is the case in pretty much every short story collection I’ve ever picked up, some really grabbed me, a few passed me by and the rest contained something of interest, even if they’ll probably not stay long in my memory. Rash definitely has a recognisable voice and though the themes and timeframes changed from story to story I felt that I could always detect an undercurrent of cynicism and fatalism in his writing. I liked his style, these stories made me think and I expect I’ll be back for more from this gifted wordsmith.
April 1, 2020
It hurt to read these stories.
I had to read these stories.
I had to read these stories.
June 18, 2021
The average star rating for this 14-story collection was 2.8 so rounded up it comes out to 3… A weak 3, not a strong one. 😐
For the first three stories I could not understand the punch line. I did not know how the stories had ended although clearly it was time for me to move on. I ran out of sentences to read...end of the line. But I wasn’t satisfied. To take up time to read a short story and then to have no clue about the ending…it was not satisfying to me and set me on a Debbie Downer view of the collection. Things really just didn’t get any better. Most stories ended on a down note.
This is the 4th book I have read by Ron Rash, the others being In the Valley (2020; 4 stars). Burning Bright (2010; 3.5 stars), and Serena (2008, 3 stars). I appreciated his writing, and that is why I chose to read another book from his oeuvre. I don’t know if it was just me this time around��it could be, as I’ve read reviews of this book (some are below), and they are all laudatory.
I wonder what I should read of his oeuvre next. Any suggestions?
These are the stories, my ratings, and when appropriate, where they were originally published.
1. The Trusty – 2.5 stars, published in The New Yorker
2. Nothing Gold Can Stay – 2 stars
3. Something Rich and Strange – 3 stars, published in Shade 2004
4. Cherokee – 2.5 stars, published in Ecotone
5. Where the Map Ends – 2 stars
6. A Servant of History – 4 stars
7. Twenty-Six Days – 3.5 stars, published in the Washington Post
8. A Sort of Miracle – 3 stars, published in Ecotone
9. Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven – 3 stars, published in The Warwick Review (England)
10. The Magic Bus – 1.5 stars
11. The Dowry – 2.5 stars, published in The Southern Review
12. The Woman at the Pond – 2.5 stars, published in The Southern Review
13. Night Hawks – 3.5 stars, published in Grist
14. Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out – 3.5 stars, published in Our State magazine
Reviews (they all loved it!)
• https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/bo...
• https://www.startribune.com/book-revi...
• http://may-on-the-short-story.blogspo...
For the first three stories I could not understand the punch line. I did not know how the stories had ended although clearly it was time for me to move on. I ran out of sentences to read...end of the line. But I wasn’t satisfied. To take up time to read a short story and then to have no clue about the ending…it was not satisfying to me and set me on a Debbie Downer view of the collection. Things really just didn’t get any better. Most stories ended on a down note.
This is the 4th book I have read by Ron Rash, the others being In the Valley (2020; 4 stars). Burning Bright (2010; 3.5 stars), and Serena (2008, 3 stars). I appreciated his writing, and that is why I chose to read another book from his oeuvre. I don’t know if it was just me this time around��it could be, as I’ve read reviews of this book (some are below), and they are all laudatory.
I wonder what I should read of his oeuvre next. Any suggestions?
These are the stories, my ratings, and when appropriate, where they were originally published.
1. The Trusty – 2.5 stars, published in The New Yorker
2. Nothing Gold Can Stay – 2 stars
3. Something Rich and Strange – 3 stars, published in Shade 2004
4. Cherokee – 2.5 stars, published in Ecotone
5. Where the Map Ends – 2 stars
6. A Servant of History – 4 stars
7. Twenty-Six Days – 3.5 stars, published in the Washington Post
8. A Sort of Miracle – 3 stars, published in Ecotone
9. Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven – 3 stars, published in The Warwick Review (England)
10. The Magic Bus – 1.5 stars
11. The Dowry – 2.5 stars, published in The Southern Review
12. The Woman at the Pond – 2.5 stars, published in The Southern Review
13. Night Hawks – 3.5 stars, published in Grist
14. Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out – 3.5 stars, published in Our State magazine
Reviews (they all loved it!)
• https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/bo...
• https://www.startribune.com/book-revi...
• http://may-on-the-short-story.blogspo...
April 1, 2013
3.5 These stories have such a strong atmosphere of the Appalachians, which is of course whatRash is best noted for. I wasn't sure if his stories would follow the same path of his novels, his brutal honesty in his treatment of his characters and his at times rather violent twists. One has to think when reading these stories, he leaves much out and never sets the reader on a clear path. Some of them do not have definitive endings and it is up to the readers interpretation to figure out what happened or will happen. These are different and though there is some humor I would not say these stories are read for fun, they are read for a great sense of time and place, interesting characters that can alternately be both victim and villain. They are read because Rash is just plain good.
August 19, 2017
Ron Rash's prose is beautiful. Nothing but Gold Can Stay, is a book of short stories, with settings in Appalachia, and time frames ranging from the Civil War to present. Rash does not write psycho thrillers or violent murder mysteries. He does not need heart stopping events to keep the reader immersed in the story. He writes about life, hope, lust, failure, friendships and hardships. His characters seem like someone you've known or maybe want to know and his descriptive writing allows me to see a tear on a cheek, a trout in a stream, steam coming from a horse's nostrils in winter, or the setting sun reflecting from a pond. This book of short stories and Ron Rash's work in general are worth reading. I highly recommend him.
September 6, 2021
Another short story collection that my #librarianhusband and I read to each other, and it was perfect! So many brilliant stories, brilliantly written. My favourites: In The Trusty, a convict on a chain-gang escapes and is double-crossed. In A Sort of Miracle, two lazy young men are embroiled in a plan to catch a bear. And in Three A.M and the Stars were Out, an elderly vet (in both uses of the word) visits his farmer friend who he was with in Korea, to help him deliver a stuck calf. They are all moving, witty, and I know this shouldn't really matter with a short story - but a perfect length for reading to each other. (And I'd also recommend Rash's collection, Burning Bright.)
July 25, 2015
“I’d fish until it was neither day nor night, but balanced between. There never seemed to be a breeze, pond and shore equally smoothed. Just stillness, as though the world had taken a soft breath, and was holding it in, and even time had leveled out, moving neither forward nor back. Then the frogs and crickets waiting for full dark announced themselves, or a breeze came up and I again heard the slosh of water against land”
Nothing Gold Can Stay is an omnibus of fourteen short stories by American author, Ron Rash. Ranging from the time of the Civil War through to the present day, the stories occur in a feast of Appalachian settings: Tennessee mountains, small town, a river between Georgia and South Carolina, a casino, a farm near the Tennessee border, a college campus, a slope in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a derelict old house, a pond and more.
Rash is a consummate storyteller who gives his reader a marvellous cast of characters: a prison trusty on a road gang, a desperate pair of drug addicts, a diver called in to recover a body, a debt-weary couple hoping for good luck, a pair of black fugitives, an Englishman with an interest in ballads, a father worried for his daughter serving in the Middle East, a husband fed up with his Florida in-laws, a mountain boy with a chance at a better life, a sixteen-year-old girl wishing for a more exciting life, a nineteenth century pastor who takes a drastic step to help a young couple, a grocery store manager prompted to recall an encounter in his teens, a night-time radio DJ and a retired veterinarian.
The stories are filled with twists, amusing plays on language and accent, black humour, irony and, of course, beautiful prose. Rash will cause the reader to think about deception, theft, loyalty, feuds, gambling, hopelessness, revenge, physical beauty and ageing. Rash’s love of the Appalachian setting is apparent in every paragraph: “He stood there in the late-afternoon light, absorbing the valley’s expansiveness after days in the mountains. The land rippled out and appeared to reach all the way to where the sun and earth merged”. Rash’s stories are pure gold.
4.5★s
Nothing Gold Can Stay is an omnibus of fourteen short stories by American author, Ron Rash. Ranging from the time of the Civil War through to the present day, the stories occur in a feast of Appalachian settings: Tennessee mountains, small town, a river between Georgia and South Carolina, a casino, a farm near the Tennessee border, a college campus, a slope in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a derelict old house, a pond and more.
Rash is a consummate storyteller who gives his reader a marvellous cast of characters: a prison trusty on a road gang, a desperate pair of drug addicts, a diver called in to recover a body, a debt-weary couple hoping for good luck, a pair of black fugitives, an Englishman with an interest in ballads, a father worried for his daughter serving in the Middle East, a husband fed up with his Florida in-laws, a mountain boy with a chance at a better life, a sixteen-year-old girl wishing for a more exciting life, a nineteenth century pastor who takes a drastic step to help a young couple, a grocery store manager prompted to recall an encounter in his teens, a night-time radio DJ and a retired veterinarian.
The stories are filled with twists, amusing plays on language and accent, black humour, irony and, of course, beautiful prose. Rash will cause the reader to think about deception, theft, loyalty, feuds, gambling, hopelessness, revenge, physical beauty and ageing. Rash’s love of the Appalachian setting is apparent in every paragraph: “He stood there in the late-afternoon light, absorbing the valley’s expansiveness after days in the mountains. The land rippled out and appeared to reach all the way to where the sun and earth merged”. Rash’s stories are pure gold.
4.5★s
November 26, 2014
Okay, it's official: Ron Rash is a literary genius.
But seriously, Ron Rash is a literary genius, at least in my book. This collection of short stories will not disappoint Rash's fans and is sure to earn him some new ones.
Though I thought all the stories were quite strong, I especially enjoyed reading "Something Rich and Strange" which served as the inspiration for his novel Saints at the River.
But seriously, Ron Rash is a literary genius, at least in my book. This collection of short stories will not disappoint Rash's fans and is sure to earn him some new ones.
Though I thought all the stories were quite strong, I especially enjoyed reading "Something Rich and Strange" which served as the inspiration for his novel Saints at the River.
June 21, 2021
4.5 stars. Only reason I'm not giving it a 5 is a couple of the stories did not interest me and were DNF. The bulk of the stories are 5ers, though. While I still have trouble with some of Rash's endings (SO oblique), the stories are beautifully written and the characters are so deftly drawn, I can still enjoy each line, if not the last one. He is one of the best American writers to capture the South and the Appalachian region. You can tell he truly cares about the down-and-out folks he creates. We again see drugs creep into this collection (the major theme in an earlier collection "Burning Bright"), as well as spot-on dialog and beautiful passages depicting nature. A favorite, the opening from "The Woman at the Pond":
"Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface."
Damn, that's good writing. Reminds me of Rick Bass. So, read this collection if you love short stories and rural American stories.
"Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface."
Damn, that's good writing. Reminds me of Rick Bass. So, read this collection if you love short stories and rural American stories.
April 10, 2013
”Water has its own archeology, not a layering but a leveling, and this is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present’s surface.”
The gorgeous hardcover edition of a new collection of stories by Ron Rash produced by Ecco Books made me pick it from among the mass of new books on a shelf. I’d never read anything by Rash before, but I so regret the lack of attention that enabled me to overlook this master until now. I exhort you not to make my mistake. Do not miss this!
Ron Rash brings us news of the Blue Ridge backwoods almost untouched by our quickening lifestyle and fulsome economy. The timeframe is extended: we move from the Civil War through the 20th Century, but we see daytime TV now and the characters who find it fascinating. His stories are gems of economy--he paints a picture, and then quietly and inexorably ratchets the tension. Our brains toil away at resolution, but Rash often surprises us, jolting us with a solution that demonstrates our naiveté and gullibility.
This stellar collection of stories from America’s Appalachian Mountain region carries with it the whiff of woodsmoke, the clang of metal in a bird-silent wood, and the chill of an unsmiling blue eye. Gold is a theme that runs through the stories: how to get it, how to keep it, how in the end it means nothing at all. One finds gold easily in the first couple of stories, and then one finds oneself scanning the final stories to see where the gold lay.
A reviewer shows us the Frost poem, the reference to which this title refers, but one cannot help but try to make sense of the title for ourselves, just as it is, with no more knowledge behind it. And in this way we receive confirmation for what we suspect: that beauty, wealth, things that money can buy, are only transitory. Life itself is transitory.
My favorite stories are the first and the last. In the first, “The Trusty”, Rash caught me out completely—it was like an O. Henry celebration. In the last, “Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out”, the writing was so quiet and so generous and so wise. Another reviewer praises Rash's quietude and the following quote, from the story “Night Hawks”, is an example of the quietude and the alienation one finds in the work:
”Often she felt like an inmate pressing palm to glass and yet feeling no warmth from a hand less than an inch away.”
This is a book you may well want to own in paper. Great literature should be visible and accessible on our shelves and publishers create beautiful volumes as a testament to great literature. This one is printed like a collection of poetry. It is slim. Even the spine is gorgeous. But don't pass it up if all you can find is an ebook.
August 28, 2014
I like me some gritty Southern fiction now and then, and Ron Rash delivers, though he's not quite Daniel Woodrell or William Faulkner, at least not yet. But this collection of sixteen short stories was very listenable, very varied and flavorful, and while not quite popping 5-star greatness for me, it satisfied my yearning so I will definitely check out more by him.
All set in the Appalachians, these are stories are about hard, surviving mountain people. They range from a post-Civil War story about a preacher called upon to make a gruesome sacrifice to heal his still-divided community, to modern times, with promising college-bound young teenagers unable to escape the gravity of poverty and meth, or a scarred former schoolteacher who finds solace only on the night shift at a radio station.
There is retribution, not always entirely deserved, such as for the pompous Englishman who comes to America to study the locals — "He was no university don muttering Gradgrindian facts facts facts in a lecture hall’s chalky air, but a man venturing among the new world’s Calibans." And for the title character of The Trustee, a Depression-era convict who figures he can charm a young bride into helping him escape.
In very few of these stories do things end well. Not all of them even have much of an ending. But this is a nice bit of recrafted Appalachian lore, both modern and period.
All set in the Appalachians, these are stories are about hard, surviving mountain people. They range from a post-Civil War story about a preacher called upon to make a gruesome sacrifice to heal his still-divided community, to modern times, with promising college-bound young teenagers unable to escape the gravity of poverty and meth, or a scarred former schoolteacher who finds solace only on the night shift at a radio station.
There is retribution, not always entirely deserved, such as for the pompous Englishman who comes to America to study the locals — "He was no university don muttering Gradgrindian facts facts facts in a lecture hall’s chalky air, but a man venturing among the new world’s Calibans." And for the title character of The Trustee, a Depression-era convict who figures he can charm a young bride into helping him escape.
In very few of these stories do things end well. Not all of them even have much of an ending. But this is a nice bit of recrafted Appalachian lore, both modern and period.
April 28, 2013
When you think of this authors writings you rekindle a great canvas dealing with memorable characters pitted into diversity with very human dilemmas, you have a great landscape as the backdrop, the characters just come alive, live, and breath off the page with his own crafted ability to spin a tale with a terrible beauty, a potent language, a prose evocative and lush, darkly poetic and a cast of characters with flaws like many humans on this earth. This collection has all these qualities mentioned in its storytelling.
You will find characters in these stories who were prisoners, young wives unhappy, men strapped for cash, gamblers trying their luck with lucky charms, fugitives on the run in the wilderness, kin loved and missed in a war effort, pals out for a hunt, characters in schooling while others cooking meth in a disused house, youngsters misbehaving, a pastor asking others to forgive after the confederate war and a radio DJ who was once a young daughter ashamed to smile.
Appalachia is the backdrop for his characters just as it is Charles Frazier's and so was Tennessee for William Gay, Mississippi for Larry Brown, the Ozark's Daniel Woodrell's, Louisiana James Lee Burke's, Texas Joe Lansdale's, Ohio Donald Ray Pollock's, Southern Indiana Frank Bill's and Southern California Don Winslow's.
This was a short story collection that one might find they will hold in high esteem in a prized position on their shelf, to take down to read often on a solemn and silent night.
A few words on some of the stories.
The Trusty
A trusty of a chain gang fetches water for the thirsty men in a near by farm.
That farm has a beautiful young woman greet him and soon they both hatch to escape from their prisons.
He has a slight of hand problem that steals from others.
Descriptive and well written, with a keen sense of place and drama.
Something Rich and Strange
Gothic tale on a woman lost to sea and a divers seeing of her in various stages of her bodies disappearance.
Where the Map Ends
After the civil war two fugitives on the run, one black the other mixed race encounter a farmer he tells of his loss in life and he gives them an important route to safety but there is one catch.
Well done story and all happening as if you are there right in the scene.
Twenty-Six Days
A couple clean for a living and during their work you are taken through their emotions and concern for their daughter who is a solider in another part of the world.
Thanksgiving approaching and they hope not to have that dreaded call informing them she has been killed or hurt.
First person narrative on a parents concern and love for the safe return of their child.
A Sort of Miracle
A few pals go out into the mountains to hunt bear.
One finds himself in a trap, an icy kind of affair.
The Dowry
The union war has gone now, a pastor ventures out to pay a visit on request to ask a colonel to give his daughter his blessing and permission to marry a man that the father wishes to try an kill again, one that had belonged to the people he fought against in the war.
The pastor asks for him to embrace forgiveness and more the New Testament message than eye for any eye of the Old.
Night Hawks
"Ginny slept as the sky cleared to a high, bright blue. By noon the temperature was in the forties. When her alarm clock went off at three, she lay in bed a few minutes listening to cars slosh through melting snow. She would not need a ride into work. She would drive herself across town, looking through safety glass as she passed the school where she had taught, then the hospital where her face had been stitched back together, the restaurant where she and Andrew had eaten breakfast.
At the radio station she would unlock the door, and soon enough Buddy Harper would end his broadcast and leave. She would say, This is the Night Hawk, and play "After Midnight." Ginny would speak to people in bedrooms, to clerks drenched in the fluorescent light of convenience stores, to millworkers driving back roads home after graveyard shifts. She would speak to the drunk and sober, the godly and the godless. All the while high above where she sat, the station's red beacon would pulse like a heart, as if giving bearings to all those in the dark adrift and alone."
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/nothing-gold-can-stay-by-ron-rash/
You will find characters in these stories who were prisoners, young wives unhappy, men strapped for cash, gamblers trying their luck with lucky charms, fugitives on the run in the wilderness, kin loved and missed in a war effort, pals out for a hunt, characters in schooling while others cooking meth in a disused house, youngsters misbehaving, a pastor asking others to forgive after the confederate war and a radio DJ who was once a young daughter ashamed to smile.
Appalachia is the backdrop for his characters just as it is Charles Frazier's and so was Tennessee for William Gay, Mississippi for Larry Brown, the Ozark's Daniel Woodrell's, Louisiana James Lee Burke's, Texas Joe Lansdale's, Ohio Donald Ray Pollock's, Southern Indiana Frank Bill's and Southern California Don Winslow's.
This was a short story collection that one might find they will hold in high esteem in a prized position on their shelf, to take down to read often on a solemn and silent night.
A few words on some of the stories.
The Trusty
A trusty of a chain gang fetches water for the thirsty men in a near by farm.
That farm has a beautiful young woman greet him and soon they both hatch to escape from their prisons.
He has a slight of hand problem that steals from others.
Descriptive and well written, with a keen sense of place and drama.
Something Rich and Strange
Gothic tale on a woman lost to sea and a divers seeing of her in various stages of her bodies disappearance.
Where the Map Ends
After the civil war two fugitives on the run, one black the other mixed race encounter a farmer he tells of his loss in life and he gives them an important route to safety but there is one catch.
Well done story and all happening as if you are there right in the scene.
Twenty-Six Days
A couple clean for a living and during their work you are taken through their emotions and concern for their daughter who is a solider in another part of the world.
Thanksgiving approaching and they hope not to have that dreaded call informing them she has been killed or hurt.
First person narrative on a parents concern and love for the safe return of their child.
A Sort of Miracle
A few pals go out into the mountains to hunt bear.
One finds himself in a trap, an icy kind of affair.
The Dowry
The union war has gone now, a pastor ventures out to pay a visit on request to ask a colonel to give his daughter his blessing and permission to marry a man that the father wishes to try an kill again, one that had belonged to the people he fought against in the war.
The pastor asks for him to embrace forgiveness and more the New Testament message than eye for any eye of the Old.
Night Hawks
"Ginny slept as the sky cleared to a high, bright blue. By noon the temperature was in the forties. When her alarm clock went off at three, she lay in bed a few minutes listening to cars slosh through melting snow. She would not need a ride into work. She would drive herself across town, looking through safety glass as she passed the school where she had taught, then the hospital where her face had been stitched back together, the restaurant where she and Andrew had eaten breakfast.
At the radio station she would unlock the door, and soon enough Buddy Harper would end his broadcast and leave. She would say, This is the Night Hawk, and play "After Midnight." Ginny would speak to people in bedrooms, to clerks drenched in the fluorescent light of convenience stores, to millworkers driving back roads home after graveyard shifts. She would speak to the drunk and sober, the godly and the godless. All the while high above where she sat, the station's red beacon would pulse like a heart, as if giving bearings to all those in the dark adrift and alone."
Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/nothing-gold-can-stay-by-ron-rash/
May 13, 2014
It always seems strange to get a book that is only a year old for 99 cents online. And it is nice when the book is as good as this one by Appalachian regional writer Ron Rash. His short stories are dependably weird and sometimes a bit grim but I have now read enough of his work – poetry, novels, short stories – to feel comfortable with him just about all the time. I especially like his kind of offbeat writing in his short stories because it does not seem so important to fully understand each one right away. Sometimes I have to read through a story a second time to figure something out but his writing is enjoyable enough that you don’t mind taking a second look.
I found an NPR interview with Ron Rash about this book at http://www.npr.org/2013/02/16/1721752.... He is fun to listen to, just a regular guy whose popularity is justifiably increasing.
This is Rash’s fifth collection of short stories. I am looking forward to reading the couple I have not gotten to yet. His popularity has lead to the republication of some of his earlier works, especially his poetry. You should not skip his poetry.
Ron Rash fans are still eagerly awaiting the release of the commercial film based on his bestselling novel Serena. Previously anticipated release dates have passed. Rumors that the film would be in the 2014 Cannes Festival have proven untrue and there is even some scuttlebutt that the film is still short of completion as of May 2014. While the caliber of the director and stars seem to strongly suggest the eventual release of the film, Ron Rash has no involvement and claims no knowledge of a release date or any details.
Nothing Gold Can Stay contains fourteen short stories. Most have appeared in earlier periodicals. I have some favorites but there is not a bad one in the bunch. Four stars.
I found an NPR interview with Ron Rash about this book at http://www.npr.org/2013/02/16/1721752.... He is fun to listen to, just a regular guy whose popularity is justifiably increasing.
This is Rash’s fifth collection of short stories. I am looking forward to reading the couple I have not gotten to yet. His popularity has lead to the republication of some of his earlier works, especially his poetry. You should not skip his poetry.
Ron Rash fans are still eagerly awaiting the release of the commercial film based on his bestselling novel Serena. Previously anticipated release dates have passed. Rumors that the film would be in the 2014 Cannes Festival have proven untrue and there is even some scuttlebutt that the film is still short of completion as of May 2014. While the caliber of the director and stars seem to strongly suggest the eventual release of the film, Ron Rash has no involvement and claims no knowledge of a release date or any details.
Nothing Gold Can Stay contains fourteen short stories. Most have appeared in earlier periodicals. I have some favorites but there is not a bad one in the bunch. Four stars.
January 29, 2014
Wat is Ron Rash toch een ongelooflijk goede schrijver. Deze verhalen zijn weer in zijn geheel eigen stem geschreven, melancholiek en vol compassie, maar nooit bitter. Geen zin valt uit de toon, alles stroomt als muziek. Sommige verhalen gaan door merg en been, zoals 'The Magic Bus'. Ik houd van Ron Rash, dat is zeker.
August 10, 2014
Excellent collection of short stories set in Appalachia from the Civil War to the present. I read his book "The Cove," which I enjoyed, but I liked this even better. The stories are all very different but they are beautifully written, vivid and imaginative. I especially liked "The Trusty" but all are memorable.
Very well done - highly recommend, especially to fans of short stories.
Very well done - highly recommend, especially to fans of short stories.
May 8, 2014
He may be renowned as a novelist, but his short stories are where I think he shines. Ron Rash might just be the finest short story writer alive.
December 1, 2015
Terrific, beautiful set of stories that have a much broader set of characters and time frames than his other collections. These are probably his best, in my opinion, and you'll find little homages to poetry here and there (even in the title). For avid Rash fans, a painting by Hopper makes its appearance just as one does in "Waterfall," and the story which either led to or was extracted from "Saints at the River" is here, but with its focus on the rescue diver.
Yes, there's that angst over meth we often see in his work, but also inhabitants with odd problem to surmount. Neer do well brothers-in-law - who aspire to be EMTs by watching medical TV shows - put a chill in their sister's marriage. Two enslaved men make an escape to freedom, and encounter a man with no son to love, complicating their journey. A chain-gang con man finds an unexpected ending with an unhappy bride.
Really, really good!
Yes, there's that angst over meth we often see in his work, but also inhabitants with odd problem to surmount. Neer do well brothers-in-law - who aspire to be EMTs by watching medical TV shows - put a chill in their sister's marriage. Two enslaved men make an escape to freedom, and encounter a man with no son to love, complicating their journey. A chain-gang con man finds an unexpected ending with an unhappy bride.
Really, really good!
July 9, 2014
A solid collection of short stories by Ron Rash, all set in his native North Carolina. If you haven't read any of his fiction, this is probably a good place to start. Plenty of variety in the 14 stories: from chain-gang escapees to oxycontin and meth addicts, set from the post-Civil War era to modern day. There were five or more stories that were great; among those, Night Hawks, about a female former sixth grade school teacher who lands a job as a night shift deejay at a local radio station after a traumatic event at her school, was my favorite. The nice thing about this collection though is that you could poll ten different readers of this book and each would probably have his/her own favorite story. Definitely recommended.
December 24, 2015
So, so, so good. Makes me feel dumb for always trashing contemporary short fiction.
December 24, 2021
Nothing Gold Can Stay is filled with well written, atmospheric short stories that uncover haunting beauty along with revealing a spiritual, yet humanistic, side of the characters. Some stories are sad and some are pleasing. "Nighthawks" is one of the best American short stories ever written.
Rash's collection is worthy of your time and thoughts.
Rash's collection is worthy of your time and thoughts.
April 7, 2015
Solid 4-star collection. A fabulous collection of stories about ordinary, small-town people spanning several decades (one dating back slavery in the south, some set in present day) caught in moral dilemmas or facing a fateful judgment. If O. Henry and Flannery O'Conner had a love child, it would be Ron Rash.
Above all these stories felt real to me. By that I mean, there wasn't always a bow on the final page to tie things up nicely, because that's not what life is really like. Ron Rash seems to be deeply familiar with that reality. Despite some which are unsettling and unresolved, each story does have a resounding impact on the reader. Some are standouts. If you only dip into one or two, see my breakdown below:
The Trusty - 4/5 - A bitterly ironic tale of a convict escaping with his beloved.
Nothing Gold Can Stay - 3/5 - two druggie friends rob their ex-boss of something strangely valuable. Enjoyable, but too unresolved for my liking.
Something Rich and Strange - 5/5 - Eerie from page one, I just liked it! Imagery really stayed with me on this one.
Cherokee - 3/5 - A couple hope to win it big at a casino and get in over their heads.
Where The Map Ends - 5/5 - Favorite story in the collection. Two slaves on the run seek shelter in a farmer's barn just beyond the Tennessee border. I felt tense and unsettled throughout this whole story - Ron Rash can really build suspense!
A Servant of History - 5/5 - A naive, well-mannered British man is sent to the Appalachian region to research ancient songs sung by Americans about England. I loved the main character in this story. Quite an unusual premise with an ending you won't expect. Fantastic.
Twenty Six Days - 3/5 - A school janitor eagerly and frightfully awaits the return of his daughter, a war-time nurse in Afghanistan. Rash really captures the emotion well.
A Sort of Miracle - 2/5 - A group of reality show-obsessed boys accompany their brother in-law on a bear hunt...really strange. I'll admit this one went over my head a bit.
Those Who Are Dead Are Now Forgotten - 4/5 - A man stuck in a small town attempts to uproot an old girlfriend (valedictorian turned meth-head) whose fallen in with a bad crowd. Frustrating and heart-breaking.
The Magic Bus - 5/5 - Small town girl has her first encounter with conscientious objectors when a hippie couple pull up at her gas station in a giant bus. She is quickly taken in by their free spirit, but perhaps to her detriment. Another story that becomes more and more unsettling as the pages turn - wickedly suspenseful!
The Dowry - 4/5 - Pastor Boon, one of the greatest southern characters in this collection, makes a serious sacrifice to see that a couple in love is wed, against the will of the girl's father. Great.
The Woman at the Pond - 4/5 - Two stories parallel each other to the last page. The first is the draining of a pond. The second, a fateful night that unfolded at that same pond years earlier. Winning combination.
Night Hawks - 5/5 - Really unique and original story about a girl who operates a night-time radio show and her inability to heal from a catastrophic event from her past. Excellent.
Three A.M.And The Stars Are Out - 4/5 - Beautiful, quite story about a farm veterinarian delivering a calf.
Above all these stories felt real to me. By that I mean, there wasn't always a bow on the final page to tie things up nicely, because that's not what life is really like. Ron Rash seems to be deeply familiar with that reality. Despite some which are unsettling and unresolved, each story does have a resounding impact on the reader. Some are standouts. If you only dip into one or two, see my breakdown below:
The Trusty - 4/5 - A bitterly ironic tale of a convict escaping with his beloved.
Nothing Gold Can Stay - 3/5 - two druggie friends rob their ex-boss of something strangely valuable. Enjoyable, but too unresolved for my liking.
Something Rich and Strange - 5/5 - Eerie from page one, I just liked it! Imagery really stayed with me on this one.
Cherokee - 3/5 - A couple hope to win it big at a casino and get in over their heads.
Where The Map Ends - 5/5 - Favorite story in the collection. Two slaves on the run seek shelter in a farmer's barn just beyond the Tennessee border. I felt tense and unsettled throughout this whole story - Ron Rash can really build suspense!
A Servant of History - 5/5 - A naive, well-mannered British man is sent to the Appalachian region to research ancient songs sung by Americans about England. I loved the main character in this story. Quite an unusual premise with an ending you won't expect. Fantastic.
Twenty Six Days - 3/5 - A school janitor eagerly and frightfully awaits the return of his daughter, a war-time nurse in Afghanistan. Rash really captures the emotion well.
A Sort of Miracle - 2/5 - A group of reality show-obsessed boys accompany their brother in-law on a bear hunt...really strange. I'll admit this one went over my head a bit.
Those Who Are Dead Are Now Forgotten - 4/5 - A man stuck in a small town attempts to uproot an old girlfriend (valedictorian turned meth-head) whose fallen in with a bad crowd. Frustrating and heart-breaking.
The Magic Bus - 5/5 - Small town girl has her first encounter with conscientious objectors when a hippie couple pull up at her gas station in a giant bus. She is quickly taken in by their free spirit, but perhaps to her detriment. Another story that becomes more and more unsettling as the pages turn - wickedly suspenseful!
The Dowry - 4/5 - Pastor Boon, one of the greatest southern characters in this collection, makes a serious sacrifice to see that a couple in love is wed, against the will of the girl's father. Great.
The Woman at the Pond - 4/5 - Two stories parallel each other to the last page. The first is the draining of a pond. The second, a fateful night that unfolded at that same pond years earlier. Winning combination.
Night Hawks - 5/5 - Really unique and original story about a girl who operates a night-time radio show and her inability to heal from a catastrophic event from her past. Excellent.
Three A.M.And The Stars Are Out - 4/5 - Beautiful, quite story about a farm veterinarian delivering a calf.
November 4, 2013
Ron Rash is a talented writer. I love his perspective. The settings and vantages in this collection of stories run the gamut; civil war run away slaves to modern day meth cooks. All taking place in the edge of Western North Carolina that I think of as "home away from home". Taken individually, there are some gems in there. Taken as a collection I wish I would have read in sips rather than straight through.
Some of my favorites were The Trusty, Something Rich and Strange, The Magic Bus, and Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out. A few of the stories ended a bit too open ended for my taste, but I think that's what Rash was trying to do to me......so I don't hold that against him. As a whole, there are other collections of shorts I would rate higher, and I think Rash's real calling is as a novelist, but I am very glad he gives us these in between so we can get the snippets of what his longer works grow out of. Well done.
Some of my favorites were The Trusty, Something Rich and Strange, The Magic Bus, and Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out. A few of the stories ended a bit too open ended for my taste, but I think that's what Rash was trying to do to me......so I don't hold that against him. As a whole, there are other collections of shorts I would rate higher, and I think Rash's real calling is as a novelist, but I am very glad he gives us these in between so we can get the snippets of what his longer works grow out of. Well done.
November 22, 2018
“Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface.”
As most of my book pals know, I love short fiction, so why has it taken me so long to read the short stories of Mr. Rash? Great question, with absolutely no acceptable answer.
Well, I have remedied that oversight and this collection is a knockout, which landed squarely in my wheelhouse.
Most of the stories are set in Appalachia, in and around North Carolina, Rash's home state. These tales span, about a 150 years, from the Civil War to the modern era, capturing the dark beauty, restlessness, and violence of those unsettled times.
I will now be reading all of his work. Better late than never... 4.5 stars
As most of my book pals know, I love short fiction, so why has it taken me so long to read the short stories of Mr. Rash? Great question, with absolutely no acceptable answer.
Well, I have remedied that oversight and this collection is a knockout, which landed squarely in my wheelhouse.
Most of the stories are set in Appalachia, in and around North Carolina, Rash's home state. These tales span, about a 150 years, from the Civil War to the modern era, capturing the dark beauty, restlessness, and violence of those unsettled times.
I will now be reading all of his work. Better late than never... 4.5 stars
March 20, 2013
Mmmm, beautiful. It's been ages since I've been able to sit down with a wonderful book of short stories & just ignore my whole family (sorry guys!) for a few hours. The first two stories are unfortunately the weakest in the book if you ask me, but if you've got a little stick-to-it-ive-ness in you, you're in for a real treat. I look forward to more Ron Rush someday when my gigantic to-read pile at home isn't threatening to teeter over & possibly smoosh any short people who might be in the area.
January 7, 2016
Ron Rash is the master of the modern South. He so effortlessly captures the despair, isolation, fear, and grit of the people who live in this region. Even though the stories are easy to breeze through, take the time to reflect on what he said--the tales are rich in historical, biblical and cultural themes that reveal his character's natures.
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