The Cove

Ron Rash

Text Publishing

Otago Daily Times, March 10th 2012

Ron Rash belongs to a tradition of American writers from Steinbeck to Springsteen who excel in chronicling the stories of the forgotten poor, those whose lives are a constant struggle for survival against nature and circumstance. His latest offering, The Cove, is set in rural North Carolina during the final year of WWI, and beautifully captures the narrow-mindedness and suspicion that characterises both the place and time.

Lauren Shelton’s entire life has been spent in the shadow of the cliffs that surround her and her brother’s farm, a valley thought to be cursed and a place that has dealt her family nothing but bad fortune. Born with a port wine stain upon her shoulders, the local townspeople shun her as a witch, and she is convinced she is destined to spend her life alone, trapped in the darkness of the valley.

Then she finds an injured stranger on their land, a man who has no voice but speaks through the music of his flute. Her brother Hank takes him on as a farmhand, and for the first time Laurel’s finds her world coloured by beauty and joy. For a few moments she allows herself to believe that she can escape the shadows, but the confluence of the war and the stranger’s history render this a fragile happiness, one that puts them all at risk.

Although it can only end badly (the story opens with the discovery of human remains in an abandoned well), The Cove is not unremittingly bleak. Rash writes with brutal honesty about the difficulty of a life spent in constant battle with the land and the seasons, the petty cruelties we inflict upon each other and the injustices of a seemingly indifferent fate. But he also celebrates goodness of people, the small kindnesses that sustain us, and the moments of pleasure in the natural world; the flash of colour from a bird’s wings, the fragrance of a flower, or warmth of sun-baked stone, and his novels leave long-lasting echoes in the imagination. The Cove left me both sad and angry for Laurel’s sake, and thankful for the luxury in which I myself dwell.