David's Reviews > Nothing Gold Can Stay: Stories

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.