Will Byrnes's Reviews > The Caretaker

The dead could do nothing worse to him than the living had already done.

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He couldn’t shake the inkling that something was about to happen, even as the morning passed undisturbed.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

Blackburn Gant has had a tough go of it for such a young man. An unfortunate event when he was six left him with a distorted face and a limp. His parents did for him what they could, mom, to the extent possible, keeping him away from those who would prey on his otherness, his father tough-loving him into strength and self-sufficiency. He was hired at the tender age of sixteen to be the caretaker of the local cemetery, as his parents were moving to Florida. That was five years ago. He is thoughtful, respectful, and kind.


Ron Rash - image from Garden & Gun – photo credit Daniel Dent

Blowing Rock (which might bear a slight resemblance to Boiling Spring, where Rash was raised) has some upsides but it is mostly a place that young people leave if they have a choice. For Naomi, seventeen, pregnant, married to a soldier serving in Korea, and the object of hatred by her in-laws, it constitutes a hostile environment.

When we meet Jacob Hampton, he is having a tough time of his own. Enduring unbelievable cold in Korea, he is drawn into hand-to-hand combat with a North Korean soldier in the opening chapter. He is seriously wounded, at minimum.

Jacob is Blackburn’s best friend. He had charged Blackburn with the responsibility of taking care of Naomi in his absence, knowing that his parents wanted no part of her.

The spring his family moved here from Foscoe, Blackburn’s father sent him to catch trout for supper. He’d been fishing on the edge of the Hampton property when Jacob appeared. Blackburn thought he’d come to run him off. Instead, Jacob guided him to the pasture’s best pools tent, and soon Blackburn’s stringer was heavy with fish. He showed Blackburn a pretend fort made of fallen branches, said that together they could build it up even bigger. It was only when Blackburn was about to head home that Jacob acknowledged his face. Does it hurt? Blackburn said no. I’m glad it doesn’t, Jacob had said.

The closeness between Jacob and Blackburn is palpable, but as Blackburn does all he can for his best friend’s wife, their bond grows as well.

Blackburn and Naomi are both outcasts in the town, people who must maintain a low profile just to get by. Most in the town are willing to at least go along with Jacob’s parents in decrying the marriage. Jacob is in no position to oppose them. Naomi is seen as a too-young gold-digger, interested only in the wealth that Jacob is slated to inherit from his successful parents. They are cruel to her, and disinherit their son. Only Blackburn stands with Naomi, seeing that she is safe, and cared for. He has nemeses of his own, a pair of louts whose desire for mayhem and dominance goes beyond teasing and beating.

A terrible thing takes place as the pregnancy progresses, a criminal deception that throws multiple lives into a particularly hurtful turmoil. You will spend the rest of your time reading this book desperate to see how it all plays out, and terrified about what awfulness will descend on characters you have come to care for.

Considering that this is very short for a novel, less than 60,000 words, there is an awful lot going on in it, so much more than gut-clutching and relatable characters. Rash is a master. He offers up poignant imagery to reinforce the story. Blackburn makes note of the fact that different breeds of apple fruit at different times of year. This just might possibly relate to Blackburn being something of a late bloomer. There are signs of hope as well as just cause for despair.

The storm had shaken branches off the white oak. Blackburn picked them up, including one on Shay Leary’s grave. The weathervane shifted. Clearer skies were coming.

But are they, really? I could not help but think of another expression of hopeful anticipation, Something’s Coming from West Side Story. And how did that story of young-love-thwarted play out? Just sayin’. The imagery is not solely applied for the literary weight-bearing, but, directed through the consciousness of his Appalachian characters, the images serve to speak against any uninformed take about the intelligence of the people living in this part of the world. It requires sophistication to think in images. Giving them these thoughts makes it impossible to think of them as hillbillies, or unintelligent, regardless of how many years of school they may have completed. Some are there not so much to broaden the characters, as to toss readers an omen for our consideration. As soon as you see a mention of Barbara Hightower, for example, your antennae will be on alert for some sort of nefarious trade, whether real or theoretical. Mentions of trout might be there to highlight some form of purity.

Place is always a central element in Rash’s fiction, Appalachia in particular. The Caretaker gives us a look at rural North Carolina in the 1950s. His portrait of small-town life includes a look at how residents interconnect, showing how this person might feel indebted to that one, and how this one might feel too intimidated to say no to another, showing shared histories, bonds, and conflicts. He also provides a look at the supportive side of the community.

When Rash was in high school, his father was hospitalized for depression, an illness that tormented him for years. Sue Rash was left alone to look after three children in a small Southern town, one that often felt to her eldest son like its own dwarf planet. But when the family needed support from their neighbors, they got it. “The whole town helped us,” Ron says. “It was a struggle that was never spoken of, but they knew. And people came through for us.” - from the Garden & Gun interview

Friendship is often in Rash’s spotlight. How far would you go for a friend? Where is the line you would not cross? Family dynamics are given a close look, in Jacob’s family and beyond, particularly how parents treat children and why. Character will be sorely tested. Not all will do themselves proud.

I had one gripe, a convenient bit of unconsciousness that seemed very deus-ex-machinery, but really, that is a quibble. This is a wonderful read.

The Caretaker is Ron Rash’s first novel in ten years. It was inspired by a true story he had heard over twenty five years before, about a soldier who had eloped with a woman his parents disapproved of, before he was sent overseas. Rash changed it from WW II to Korea and expanded on the dark event that happened in that tale. In the lecture linked in EXTRA STUFF, he says, It's been the hardest novel I've ever done. He considers himself more of a short-story writer, which goes a ways to explaining the considerable gap since his last novel.

One of the masters of American literature, Ron Rash has struck again, with a story that will not only dazzle you with the strength of the character portrayals, but keep your abs clenched as you worry how the central crime (Rash is so good that you can really understand why the crime was committed, and appreciate the desperate motivation, without necessarily empathizing with the whole undertaking) will resolve for all involved. He will enrich your reading experience with dazzling literary skill, while giving you a look at a time, a place, and a culture. That West Side Story song may or may not portend something wonderful for the characters in this book, but it definitely works for any new work published by Ron Rash

Somethin's comin', I don't know what it is
But it is gonna be great

Yes. Yes, it is.
Review posted - 09/22/23

Publication date – 09/26/23


I received an ARE of The Caretaker from Doubleday in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.




This review is cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Link to Rash’s personal site. His son, James, set up, and his daughter, Caroline, currently maintains, a Fan Club FB page for him. But the latter does not appear to have been updated since 2020.

Profile – Marky Rusoff Literary Agency

Ron Rash’s family has lived in the southern Appalachian Mountains since the mid-1700’s, and it is this region that is the primary focus of his writing. Rash grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and graduated from Gardner-Webb College and Clemson University. He holds the John Parris Chair in Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University. Rash is the author of 9 books: The Night The New Jesus Fell to Earth (short stories), Casualties (short stories), Eureka Mill (poetry), and Among the Believers (poetry), Raising the Dead (poetry), One Foot in Eden (novel), Saints at the River (novel), The World Made Straight (2006), and Serena (2008). His poetry and fiction have appeared in over one hundred journals, magazines, and anthologies, including The Longman Anthology of Southern Literature, Western Wind, Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah and Poetry.

Interviews
-----Garden & Gun – August 2020 - Meet Ron Rash, the Blue-Collar Bard by Bronwen Dickey - done for his prior book, but still relevant
-----PBS Books - Ron Rash Interview at Miami Book Fair
- by Jeffrey Brown - video 8:34 – from 2014 – on the impact of landscape on stories and authors who have informed his work

My reviews of other Ron Rash books
-----2020 - In the Valley
-----2016 - The Risen
-----2015 - Above the Waterfall
-----2013 - Nothing Gold Can Stay
-----2012 - The Cove
-----2010 - Burning Bright
-----2008 - Serena

Item of Interest
-----Romantic Asheville - Brown Mountain Lights - mentioned in Chapter 20

Item of Interest from the author
----- CCC&TI Writer's Symposium - 2023: Ron Rash lecture - video - 56:05 - Rash begins at 6:00

Songs/music
-----Red Foley - Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy - referenced in chapter 6
-----Arthur Smith - Guitar Boogie– noted in Chapter 15
-----West Side Story - Something’s Coming - from 1961 film