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One Foot in Eden A Novel Ron Rash Books

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One Foot in Eden A Novel Ron Rash Books

This is my first book by Ron Rash, and wow. He is a wonderfully gifted writer. He really knows how to build a story and pull you in, always keeping your interest. One Foot in Eden is set in rural Jocasse SC, a tiny farming community outside of the country town of Seneca SC. The book opens in the 1950's. Sheriff Will Alexander is a WWII vet who came home to Jocasse, and instead of farming like his father and brother, he was asked to fulfill the Sheriff position since he had seen war. Will and his wife Janice seem to be married unhappily. After a miscarriage, Janice is unable to conceive and there is distance between them. Holland Winchester is another WWII vet. A farmer and the local hellraiser. He seems to be suffering from PTSD, although in those days it went untreated. Winchester is haunted by what he has seen in the Pacific, yet still carries in a pouch the ears he cut from the men he killed. Winchester goes missing one day and it is up to the Sheriff to solve the mystery. Then enters Winchesters neighbors, former sharecropper, now farmer, Billy Holcombe and his beautiful wife Amy. The Holcombes are happy and in love, but cannot conceive the child they both dearly want. Billy is the sterile one. A childhood bout with polio left him impotent. Amy finds a way to get pregnant and Billy agrees to raise and love the child although he is well aware of who the father is. I don't want to further spoilers, but this story was beautifully woven.
Jocassee is no longer a small rural farming community. In 1973, the local power utility emptied the settlement of its inhabitants and flooded the community, making Jocassee Dam. This very real event brings events in the story to the final crescendo. A very good book.


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One Foot in Eden A Novel Ron Rash Books Reviews

In a small Appalachian town, local sheriff, Will Alexander, has a murder to solve, whose suspects have been known to him since his childhood. He knows the covert ways and means of the people in this cloistered Appalachian valley because he is one of them, yet has to maintain the distance of his officious status as he tries to solve a crime he suspects is a murder, yet no one can find the body. In an authentic regional patois, author Ron Rash tells the story of the disappearance of Holland Winchester from the vantage points of five characters. The story unfolds like a Southern, gothic crime in suspenseful arcs that fit together as each character explains their version of the story. The gripping tone of One Foot in Eden is moody and clipped, and what sets it apart is its economic, salt-of-the-earth language, turned in such a descriptive, brass-tacks way as to make it poetic. One Foot in Eden lulls the reader into a mind-set as bona fide as the Appalachian dirt, and herein lies its clever, uncommon beauty. Ron Rash's confidant voice is so distinct, it leaves an impact. One Foot in Eden is the first of his books I've read, and before I got to its last page, I bought another of his novels.
I rarely read murder mysteries but have just finished One Foot in Eden (2003) by Ron Rash. Comparing One Foot in Eden to other works within the genre would best be left to others. What made this novel memorable for me was Rash’s faithful treatment of the local English dialect as it existed in the South Carolina Upcountry at the end of the Korean War. When television brought the outside world to this region of Appalachia, the uniqueness of the local language was compromised. Rash does a masterful job of capturing this change of dialect and the loss of colorful local idioms through the speech patterns of the first three narrators (early-1950’s) contrasted with those of the final two (early-1970’s).
Ron Rash is an Appalachian maestro. This book involves a murder presented from a number of viewpoints. The story is a tad familiar, but the particulars are fresh, and Rash infuses nearly every paragraph with a memorable hard-boiled line. He's the sort of writer who can describe anything with gutshot beautiful prose and send even the most jaded reader reaching for her highlighter. Though his short fiction is my personal favorite, and this novel is clearly a first novel in terms of limited scope, it is worth a read for fans of Denis Johnson, Carver, etc. Lean, sharp, dark, pretty prose, and universal human themes of suffering, love, hope, pride, and wonder.
This is not the "type" of story I usually read. I was attracted to the writing style of Ron Rash through one of his short stories, so I figured I'd pick up one of his novels. I liked his short story so much that I also figured I'd like how he wrote in the longer form; so I decided to pick up this, his first effort, published in 2003, even though it's a "murder mystery." I'm glad I gave this a shot. If you're going to pick this up, I recommend *not* reading too many spoiler-type reviews, like the lengthy and too-detailed review from Publisher's Weekly.

For a first novel, this is a wonderful effort. The story explores a "murder mystery" through five different first-person narrators. This drives the narrative and the suspense of the story, of the who, the why, and the how. But the center of the story is the unfolding and never-ending effects of living with life choices, and chance--and how both can haunt lives for years. The language is at once simple and poetic; the voices are plain but deep and well crafted. (Mr. Rash is also a poet, and that side of him is evident on every page of this novel.)

There were a few story loopholes that didn't sit well with me. But the force of the narrative and Mr. Rash's skills as a storyteller and poet overpowered these in the end.

Highly recommended for such an engaging and well-plotted story, use of narrative and language, all packed into 214 pages.

I really liked it
4/5 Goodreads
5/5
This is my first book by Ron Rash, and wow. He is a wonderfully gifted writer. He really knows how to build a story and pull you in, always keeping your interest. One Foot in Eden is set in rural Jocasse SC, a tiny farming community outside of the country town of Seneca SC. The book opens in the 1950's. Sheriff Will Alexander is a WWII vet who came home to Jocasse, and instead of farming like his father and brother, he was asked to fulfill the Sheriff position since he had seen war. Will and his wife Janice seem to be married unhappily. After a miscarriage, Janice is unable to conceive and there is distance between them. Holland Winchester is another WWII vet. A farmer and the local hellraiser. He seems to be suffering from PTSD, although in those days it went untreated. Winchester is haunted by what he has seen in the Pacific, yet still carries in a pouch the ears he cut from the men he killed. Winchester goes missing one day and it is up to the Sheriff to solve the mystery. Then enters Winchesters neighbors, former sharecropper, now farmer, Billy Holcombe and his beautiful wife Amy. The Holcombes are happy and in love, but cannot conceive the child they both dearly want. Billy is the sterile one. A childhood bout with polio left him impotent. Amy finds a way to get pregnant and Billy agrees to raise and love the child although he is well aware of who the father is. I don't want to further spoilers, but this story was beautifully woven.
Jocassee is no longer a small rural farming community. In 1973, the local power utility emptied the settlement of its inhabitants and flooded the community, making Jocassee Dam. This very real event brings events in the story to the final crescendo. A very good book.