Something Rich and Strange

Abstract

REVIEW-ESSAY THOMAS ÆRVOLD BJERRE University of Southern Denmark Something Rich and Strange RON RASH SURELY NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION TO READERS OF THIS JOURNAL. The prize-winning poet, short story writer, and novelist has gained a wider readership for each new book he has published. It has been a pleasure to observe the growing readership as well as the increase in scholarly articles on Rash. This past year alone has seen a heightened focus: in November, Ecco, Rash’s long-time publisher, put out a career-spanning collection of thirty-four selected stories meant to establish his place in the canon of great American short story writers. It is titled Something Rich and Strange, a title that would also be fitting for the two books released by The University of South Carolina Press a few months earlier, books that also serve to reaffirm Rash’s status: The Ron Rash Reader (2014), edited by Randall Wilhelm, and John Lang’s Understanding Ron Rash (2014). The latter has the honor of being the first scholarly monograph on Rash’s work. Several more are on their way—at least one anthology is in press at present. And Rash just keeps on writing. His sixth novel, Above the Waterfall, will be published in September 2015. The Ron Rash Reader is a 400-page collection spanning all the genres Rash has worked in. Editor Randall Wilhelm has taken on the daunting task of extracting from the author’s fourteen books (published in only twenty years) what the publisher calls a “best of” collection that represents the “full range” of Rash’s career. And since Rash has published poetry, short stories, and novels, often alternately, readers can now see the variety of his work in one book, genre by genre. The arrangement sets off what Wilhelm calls “Rash’s recycling methods” (15), a “nuanced and subtle weaving” of thematic material (5). In his excellent introduction “Blood Memory,” Wilhelm states that the “carefully chosen selections exhibit some of the best of Rash’s work” (5). Although the exact basis of Wilhelm’s selections is never explained, the novel samples make sense. We are introduced to the first chapter of each novel. I would have liked to see more poems included, and while 152 Thomas Ærvold Bjerre the selection of short stories can be debated, what is here is certainly excellent and representative of Rash’s full body of work. In just under thirty pages, Wilhelm’s introduction lays out an impressively detailed overview of Rash’s books. Wilhelm shows deft insight into the finest details of Rash’s poetry, suggesting his progress as a writer and summing up the general themes of his body of work: the focus on the natural world (specifically Appalachia) and its people, the recovering of the region’s lost voices, an examination of “the lonely spaces of the human heart” (4), despair met with courage, hope, and love, a fight against the tired stereotypes of his region, an increasing concern for drug abuse, and, as Wilhelm is keen to point out, an often overlooked humor that draws on the best of the tradition of Southern humorists. While the introduction admirably covers important matters of style, genre, poetics, inspiration, and themes, I disagreed with his reading of The Cove as “a thriller” and was surprised that war was hardly mentioned in the discussion of the novel. On a more general note, the issue of gender remains largely untouched in Wilhelm’s exploration of Rash’s oeuvre. Apart from already published work, the collection also features four previously uncollected pieces of nonfiction (dated broadly as 2006-2013) as well as five previously uncollected short stories (also dated broadly, as 1998-2013). Despite the lack of specific dates for the texts as well as the curious absence of Rash’s essay “The Importance of Place,” the addition of these unpublished works is cause for joy for anyone who appreciatesRash’swork.Thetwolongeststories,“Outlaws”and“TheFar and the Near,” are riveting explorations of youth, war, family, and art, while the three-page long “The Harvest” is quintessential Rash in its quiet way of packing a big punch. Despite my minor reservations, The Ron Rash Reader is a...