in the valley stories and a novella based on serena

'A gorgeous, brutal writer' (Richard Price) working at the height of his powers, Ron Rash has created another mesmerizing look at the imperfect world around us. And in revisiting Serena Pemberton, Rash updates his best-selling parable of greed run amok as his deliciously vindictive heroine returns to the North Carolina wilderness she left scarred and desecrated to make one final effort to kill the child that threatens all she has accomplished. Two of the stories have already been singled out for accolades: 'Baptism' was chosen by Roxane Gay for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2018, and 'Neighbors' was selected by Jonathan Lethem for The Best American Mystery Stories 2019. In these 10 stories, Rash spins a haunting allegory of the times we live in - rampant capitalism, the severing of ties to the natural world in the relentless hunt for profit, the destruction of body and soul with pills meant to mute our pain - and yet within this world he illuminates acts of extraordinary decency and heroism. A virtuosic novelist, poet, and story writer, he evokes the beauty and brutality of the land, the relentless tension between past and present, and the unquenchable human desire to be a little bit better than circumstances would seem to allow (to paraphrase Faulkner). Ron Rash has long been a revered presence in the landscape of American letters. writer Antoine de Saint-Exupry s most famous novella The Little Prince.

He's one of the best living American writers.' (Janet Maslin, New York Times Book Review )įrom best-selling and award-winning writer Ron Rash - 'One of the great American authors at work today.' ( The New York Times ) - comes a collection of 10 searing stories and the return of the villainess who propelled Serena to national acclaim, in a long-awaited novella. Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with. Winner of the 2020 Thomas Robinson Prize for Southern Literature Named a Garden & Gun and Atlanta Journal Constitution best book of the year

In the valley stories and a novella based on serena