{"id":898,"date":"2017-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-04T22:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=898"},"modified":"2025-01-01T16:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T03:49:21","slug":"ron-rash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2017\/04\/15\/ron-rash\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Made Straight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ron Rash<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Text Publishing<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Otago Daily Times , April 15th 2017<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Born and raised in the Carolinas, Ron Rash specialises in darkly claustrophobic local stories that explore the interaction between individual lives and the physical and historical landscape that surrounds them.  These are States that dwell in and are dominated by the shadow of the Appalachian mountains where, as one of the main characters in A World Made Straight <\/em>puts it:\u2018Landscape [is] destiny\u2026the sense of being closed in, of human limitation\u2026[ people]\u2026live in the passive voice.\u2019<\/em>  Escape may be possible, but it comes at a price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published in 2006, and recently released in its Australasian edition, the story is set in Madison County during the 1970s and centres around two main characters; Travis Shelton, the teenage son of a local tobacco farmer; and ex-teacher turned drug dealer, Leonard Shuler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 17, Travis has no definite plans for his future; he has no intention of following in his father\u2019s footsteps, but neither does he intend to return to high school for the autumn semester and his main concern at this point in time is whether or not he can afford the warrant for his car. So when he stumbles across a marijuana plantation near one of his favourite fishing spots, he immediately absconds with a couple of plants that he sells to Leonard for enough money to solve his immediate cash flow problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emboldened by the prospect of easy riches, Travis repeats the process and is caught by the plot\u2019s owner, who cuts his Achilles tendon and warns him, prophetically, that next time he will not get off so lightly. His equally furious father throws Travis out, and he ends up back at the dealer\u2019s ramshackle caravan where a bemused Leonard suddenly finds himself de facto guardian of a boy he barely knows. But Travis\u2019s inquisitive mind and desire to learn remind Leonard he once aspired to something more than selling drugs to teenagers, while Leonard\u2019s unorthodox teaching style engages Travis\u2019s interest in a way that school never did. When he learns about the execution of thirteen members of the Shelton family by their Confederate neighbours during the Civil War, Travis is determined to find out all that he can about the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first it seems that the combination of the youth\u2019s impulsiveness and the older man\u2019s passivity may balance each other out and save them both, but Leonard\u2019s own family history harbours a secret about the Sheltons\u2019 betrayal that he must ultimately \u2018make straight\u2019 before either can be free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Annie Proulx, whose writing I am strongly reminded of, Rash\u2019s stories are firmly located in both time and place but have a universalism that transcends both. These are swing States where Trump\u2019s empty promises of economic and individual freedom resounded so strongly in last year\u2019s election, and although his characters sometimes border on the stereotypical, they also represent a reality we need to recognise and acknowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is much about The World Made Straight<\/em> that is disturbing. It is not an easy read, but worth the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/disturbing-read-well-worth-effort<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Rash
\n
\nOtago Daily Times review April 15th 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[263,370,18,117],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-263","tag-fiction","tag-odt","tag-ron-rash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1828,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/1828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}