Description: When a 12-year-old girl drowns in the Tamassee River and her body is trapped in a deep eddy, the people of the small South Carolina town that bears the river's name are thrown into the national spotlight.
Brief description: Ron Rash is the author of the prize-winning novels One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River and The World Made Straight, as well as several collections of poetry and short stories. He is the recipient of an O. Henry Prize and the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. For Saints at the River he received the 2004 Weatherford Award for Best Novel and the 2005 SEBA Best Book Award for Fiction. Rash holds the John Parris Chair in Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University and lives in Clemson, South Carolina.
Review Quotes:
"A compelling novel...Rash tells his story with subtlety and with the best kind of empathy."
--The Wall Street Journal
--Entertainment Weekly "Ron Rash writes like a prince."
--Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides "Maggie is an ideal observer from the center for things. Her knowing voice carries us through this sad, complex, and beautiful story."
--Time Out New York "Rash's clean prose and love for the land easily carry this book to its conclusion, providing readers with a powerful ending that is both surprising and well earned."
--The Charlotte Observer "Shows [Rash's] versatility and chutzpah...Rash's prose... has a peculiar headlong drive akin to that of hard-boiled detective novels--the best sort."
--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Fluid...Rash's prose sparkles....He does the best thing a writer can do: entrench the reader in a scene."
--Greensboro News & Record "Gripping...Spare, resonant, unputdownable."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)