At the heart

Ron Rash writes the way a fisherman filets. Nothing is spared getting to the meat. His sharpened knife sends the extras flying off the table.

What’s left is naked narrative, each story caught in a defining moment that’s loaded with unexpressed pathos or fear. The spare quality owes its origins to Rash’s works as a poet and his habit of using concise language. The quality of pathos or fear comes with “cornering” his characters. What Rash says of Flannery O’Connor’s stories describes his own: “It was putting her characters in a situation where their essence would be revealed, the mask of the everyday would be taken off of their everyday existence.’” 

Rash’s latest collection of short stories comes soon after the success of Serena, a novel that was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. This collection, like his last, showcases Rash at his best.