Above the Waterfall

[[Ron Rash]] flickered onto my radar with several stories in literary journals. His simple, straightforward style brings something to the typical Appalachian Gothic that is often missing, a keen eye for the people, place, and sensibility. This one, a longer form than I've read from him before, elongates the story without complicating it - Rash doesn't need complex plots to tell a good story. In this story, a near-retired Sheriff is pitted against a destination-hotel developer, with a crotchety local and a park ranger in the middle. The mystery isn't terribly difficult to figure out, but Rash doesn't intend it to be. What he spends his time on is the character's lives and back-stories, fleshing out their choices and motivations. If you show more are about to read about where crawdads sing, read this instead - read it twice instead.

5 bones!!!!!
Highly recommended show less

One story my grandfather told me about his days as a sandhog had seemed a tall tale, even to a kid, but later I'd found out it was true. In the years before electricity, what light burned inside the underwater caissons came from candles. At the greatest depths, the pressure was such that the candles wouldn't blow out. The flame would sail off the wick, ricochet around the metal, then resettle on the wick. What my grandfather hadn't told me was that sometimes cables broke and a man would be trapped down there. He'd know the candle was burning up oxygen, and he'd know the flame would not go out, but he'd keep blowing anyway, even with his last breaths, still hoping against hope that, somehow, it might. (Les)

I received this uncorrected show more proof as part of Powell's Indiespensable box this quarter. The story alternates between the perspectives of Les, a retiring sheriff, and his on-and-off-again lady friend Becky, a park superintendent with a dark past. Les has a few loose ends to tie up in the last couple of weeks before his retirement. The mystery of a poisoned trout stream is the case that dominates most of his remaining time. It is a complicated case for Les because the main suspect is Gerald, an elderly man with whom Becky has a deep bond.

This is a quiet, slow-moving novel, that suddenly picks up the pace in the second half. The first part of the book is more of a character story, but it becomes a standard whodunit halfway through when the river is poisoned. I greatly preferred Les's chapters over Becky's. Most of her chapters are poetic nature descriptions or flashbacks into her traumatic past. I never really felt like I got a full grasp of her character. The character background stories (Becky with the school shooting and ecoterrorist ex-boyfriend and Les's depressed ex-wife) were threads that weren't completely weaved in and it left me wanting more or even less. I know that the ecoterrorist boyfriend was meant to make the reader and Les doubt Becky as a great judge of character, but I didn't fully get the school shooting connection. It explained her eccentricities, but her strangeness wasn't really integral to the story.

I didn't fully grasp the deep connection between Gerald and Becky. I think he may have reminded her of her grandparents, which made her feel a sense of duty towards him. I don't think it was really fully explored or connected. We only see Gerald through the eyes of Les and Becky, but I think he was really well-drawn as as strong, stoic man who has watched the world leave him behind.

"That gun was aimed at you a full minute," Jarvis told me later. Your life flashes before you, I've always heard, but it hadn't for me. It was as if I stood in the corner, not so much observing as performing a methodical self-autopsy, not of my body but of my life. I had not been frightened. Instead, I'd felt a calm clarity. Everything inside me, including my heart, seemed suspended, except one thought. What will you miss? A full minute and I'd had no answer. Then the gun was lowered, and I slowly, reluctantly, came back into myself. (Les)

Les is a conflicted, flawed person and I felt that he was more well-developed than Becky. Les's main motivation is to set things right before his retirement and to finally be able to answer the question "In the very core of my being, who am I?" in a satisfactory way.

Like the pot bribes, Jarvis was letting me know things would be different with him in charge. That was a good thing, but he would learn in time that a sheriff could bend the law for no other reason than what was law and what was right sometimes differed.(Les)

The writing itself is very lovely to read. I think it is a credit to the author that I didn't think "Wait, what is this even about?", until I suddenly noticed half of the pages were in my left hand! I really liked the bleak setting and Ron Rash is truly a master at creating the atmosphere of Appalachia. I liked the contrast of the ugliness of man against the serene beauty of nature. The parts about methheads and the river poisoning were the strongest parts for me. The mystery elements were tied up in a satisfying way.

I loved the writing and the setting, so I would definitely read another book by this author! I did like this one, it just isn't one of my favorites.

Above me that night tiny lights brightened and dimmed, brightened and dimmed. Photinus carolinus. Fireflies synchronized to make a single meadow-wide flash, then all dark between. Like being inside the earth's pulsing heart. I'd slowed my blood-beat to that rhythm. So much in the world that night. (Becky) show less

Ron Rash is currently my favorite writer, and "Serena" is still his best work. However, in this fine novel, he moves the reader with even more of the peace and violence and the abundant mystery of Appalachian life. Les is a sheriff, weeks from retirement, and tired of drowning in meth and its victims. Becky is a park ranger who moved to the same small town after a childhood tragedy. Les has suffered his own as well:

"More than once I'd imagined a listing on an internet dating site: Man who encouraged clinically depressed wife to kill herself seeks woman, traumatized by school shooting, who later lived with ecoterrorist bomber."

Les and Becky are surrounded by mountain beauty and by human frailty and kindness. All the townspeople and their show more situations ring true. With Ron Rash, there are no false notes ever, just lyrical writing and a strong story.

"In a country this rural, everyone's connected, if not by blood, then in some other way. In the worst times, the country was like a huge web. The spider stirred and many linked strands vibrated." show less

It’s difficult to describe how thoughtful, subtle, intricate and compelling this story is. All the characters have their problems and past wounds that contribute to their actions. I won’t summarize, but nature clashes with the messy reality of greed, drug abuse and poor choices. Despite that, Rash writes of a chance for redemption for those that seek it.

"Though sunlight tinges the mountains, black leatherwinged bodies swing low. First fireflies blink languidly. Beyond this meadow, cicadas rev and slow like sewing machines. All else ready for night except night itself. I watch last light lift off level land. Ground shadows seep and thicken. Circling trees form banks. The meadow itself becomes a pond filling, on its surface dozens of black-eyed susans." And so goes the first paragraph of Ron Rash's upcoming book, Above the Waterfall. Reading this passage for me was like taking a nice, deep breath of fresh air. Quiet words all strung together to create something simply beautiful.
The synopsis for this book on GR references the movie Serena based on the book of the same name by Rash. What show more a shame. That movie was an abomination and that book was breathtakingly tremendous. But I digress. Above the Waterfall is quiet throughout - for me it is the things that Rash does not say that are just as important as the things he does. He is a masterful writer in my opinion and this outing is excellent. I was not wowed like I was with Serena so I couldn't go with the 5th star, but this is still a book worthy of the author's copious talent and the reader's investment of time. Definitely recommend.

ARC from publisher show less

This was a quick and easy read, despite some difficult subject matter (domestic terrorism, corporate greed, meth raids, school shootings) and what I felt was a less than successful handling of one character's point of view. Les is the Sheriff of a rural Appalachian community, and he's just a couple weeks away from retirement. He has little time for introspection as he tries to tidy a few things up for his successor, but he is forced to do some soul-searching before he hands in his badge. A man who probably saved his life when they were both teenagers may be losing his job, and it may be partly Les's fault. Becky, a park ranger he has an ill-defined relationship with, is struggling with her own past and with local suspicions about an show more elderly man she has taken under her wing. Someone has poisoned a creek on the property of a local resort, killing the trout so many people come there to catch; the owner is convinced that Becky's elderly friend is responsible. The story is told in alternating chapters, from Les's point of view, and from Becky's. Becky, in addition to ongoing processing of a childhood trauma, has an affinity with nature and with the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. For an extended period the child Becky did not speak, and she spent a lot of time inside herself, so her thoughts may naturally be more abstract than ours, but there was a disconnect between how she thinks and how she speaks as an adult that was too much for me. I recognized bits of Hopkins poems in some of her thought passages, but it all felt like the author was trying too hard. As an interactive character Becky worked very well. But her back story seemed irrelevant to her presence in the story, unlike Les's reflections on his own youth and character. Her part also felt a bit underdeveloped, as though she really deserved a story in which she was the main character. I rather wish Rash had played her as a simpler secondary character in this one, and let her take center stage in another novel, or that he had made this a longer, fuller novel for her sake.
January 2016 show less

Sheriff Les is ready to retire, but first he has a few last cases to close. He has been dealing with the crystal meth crisis in the Appalachians of North Carolina. He is seeing Becky, a local ranger with a traumatic past, and has had his share of troubles in life. The primary storyline concerns a mystery of a poisoning of fish that takes place above the waterfall. It is related to a disagreement between a longtime resident and a resort owner. The first half of this book sets up the characters and the interpersonal dynamics of the townsfolk, and the second follows the course of solving the mystery.

It is structured in dual perspectives – one from the Sheriff’s point of view and the other from Becky’s. Becky’s portions involve show more beautiful descriptions of the natural wilderness. She seeks solace in nature to help heal her trauma. The reasons behind her traumas and Les’s troubles are told in flashbacks. There are quite a few contemporary issues thrown into this book, but there are so many (ecoterrorism, school shootings, environmentalism, addictions, PTSD) that it seems too scattered. I think the meth issues are well done and necessary, but the others are barely touched upon, and they are too significant to be afterthoughts in a lightweight plot. The primary storyline is a run-of-the-mill mystery that is not particularly deep or complex. I liked it but it probably will not stay with me. show less