Ron Rash spellbinding reading in Easley SC

    Ron Rash turned seventy years old this year, same age as me. We were only 16 miles apart most of our secondary hs years, he in Boiling Springs (Gardner WEBB) NC and me in Gaffney SC as he says only the Broad River Between. But I didn't know of him till 20 odd years ago when my friend Sam Hodges then book review editor for the Charlotte Observer told me he was an up and coming novelist.

     Ive read most of his stuff and the reviews, published an interview of him and was on the strong margins of an attempt to bring his novel One Foot in Eden to the screen. At one point Jeff Bridges and the Oscar Nominee Alicia Vikander were attached but after ten years of arduous conversation and financing it evaporated.

    His latest novel after seven years hiatus is The Caretaker. Critics say it is among his best. Oct 6 at the Easley Library before a crowd of 200 or more, Rash gave a spellbinding reading from his latest creation. Rash is one of the best writers in America these days. His favorites include Cormac McCarthy, Mark Powell of Wahalla SC  and Yale Div, and Joe Fosse of Norway. He also like Annie Proulx a good bit.

     Rash seemed to be at home among several of his former students from Tri County Tec and the Dark Corner of Upstate SC plus lot of regional fans of their local boy done good. For the first time in my hearing at least, he told of being a HS teacher for two years while doing grad work at Clemson (mid 70s) at Salem HS. Salem is about ten miles from the Lake Jocassee Dam. He said it was the stories of his Salem students and their received oral history from their families in the damming of Jocassee in 1970 that inspired his novel One Foot in Eden.

     Before the presentation I told Rash of a recent interview by U Michigan of Mark Powell. Powell said the friends he grew up with workers and children of textile mill workers, farmers etc in Oconee county are politically confused. The world has changed fast for them and they deserve more than to dismissed as venal Trump populist. He shares the onus, the weight of the blame on cynical politicians who manipulate their values.

    I asked Rash what his thoughts were reminding him he once said he tried to take distance from such discussions as not long ago Zell Miller was as big a fan of his work as his fans in France and other parts of Europe.

    Rash said he would leave it with Faulkner who said most folks do the best they can with the circumstances they were born.

    I'm not inclined to readings, but Rash was grand. Read the book, but if he comes to your vicinity go hear him read. As Grand as Lincoln is in print think about how it must have been up front for the Gettysburg address. And Jesus with the Beatitudes