Above the waterfall: a novel

by Ron Rash

Large Print, 2015

Publication

New York, HarperLuxe, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, cop.2015

Collection

Eiland Center

Call number

Large Print Fiction R

Physical description

244 p.; 23 cm

Status

Available

Call number

Large Print Fiction R

Description

Fiction. Literature. Romance. HTML: In this poetic and haunting tale set in contemporary Appalachia, New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash illuminates lives shaped by violence and a powerful connection to the land. Les, a long-time sheriff just three-weeks from retirement, contends with the ravages of crystal meth and his own duplicity in his small Appalachian town. Becky, a park ranger with a harrowing past, finds solace amid the lyrical beauty of this patch of North Carolina. Enduring the mistakes and tragedies that have indelibly marked them, they are drawn together by a reverence for the natural world. When an irascible elderly local is accused of poisoning a trout stream, Les and Becky are plunged into deep and dangerous waters, forced to navigate currents of disillusionment and betrayal that will force them to question themselves and test their tentative bond�??and threaten to carry them over the edge. Echoing the heartbreaking beauty of William Faulkner and the spiritual isolation of Carson McCullers, Above the Waterfall demonstrates once again the prodigious talent of "a gorgeous, brutal writer" (Richard Price) hailed as "one of the great American authors at work today" (Janet Maslin, New York Times).… (more)

Subjects

Drug traffic fiction

Man-woman Relationships Fiction

Nature Social aspects Fiction

North Carolina

North Carolina fiction

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

User reviews

LibraryThing member gmmartz

There is some undeniably beautiful writing by Ron Rash in 'Above the Waterfall'. Some passages, in particular the ones narrated by the main female character, are downright poetic. I've become a big fan of Mr. Rush's use of the language in the course of one relatively short novel.

On the other hand,

the plot wasn't, at least to me, significant enough to carry the book. I understand there are bigger issues that are touched upon, but the main story line just isn't very deep and the action moves too slowly.

I'm a fan of great writing, and 'Above the Waterfall' certainly has that. It was just a bit slow for my taste.

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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee

This is an extraordinary novel, and defies cogent definition. At times it edges towards poetry, yet at other points it plums the depths of small town corruption and the squalor encountered in society’s hidden hinterlands.

As the book opens, Les, the sheriff of the unnamed Appalachian town, is due

to take his early retirement in the next three weeks, and spends much of his time thinking about his new life to come. Meanwhile Becky, his close friend, is a forest ranger, dedicated to protecting the wild from human encroachment. Both of them have shadows across their past. Becky is also a poet, composing elegiac verse about the wonders of nature that she encounters every day. Les is waging war against the local crystal meth dealers, and each new raid is a further foray into the fringes of hell.

Against all this, Gerald Blackwelder, an aging local farmer, finds himself in an increasingly bitter feud with a local resort. Gerald, like Becky, loves all aspects of nature, and is particularly enthralled by the beauty of the trout to be found above a waterfall on the resort’s estate. The resort’s owner is concerned that Gerald’s grizzled countenance has alarmed some of his more urbane guests. Gerald has his own emotional and psychological baggage.

Rash’s language is amazing, allowing him to render poetic even the most mundane of actions. His characters are beautifully drawn, and all have their respective failings. Yet Rash does not allow the beauty of his prose to prevent the action fairly fizzing along. This was one of those novels that I was enchanted by, and while I was eager to discover how the plotlines would be resolved, I regretted having finished it as reading it had been simply so enjoyable. Scarcely a paragraph goes by without a beautiful image.

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LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd

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 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

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LibraryThing member Beamis12

A rather simple plot compared to many of Rash's other books but filled with memorable characters nevertheless. Becky, her story is written in a kind of surreal style. She has had a tragic past, but is now the ranger at the National Forest and is the friend of an old landowner. C. J. came back to

town to take a job and now finds that the job has disappeared, leaving him without support for his wife and sons. Barry, a young police officer who quits after a nasty meth bust. Can no longer bear to look at the damage and the worst that people can do to each other. And a sheriff, good friends with Becky, due to retire in a matter of days.

Rash's real genius, however, is in painting a picture of the landscape that is both beautiful and poignant. Every little detail, nothing too small escapes his notice. The love of land that he imparts to many of his characters. Simply wonderful.

Alternately he wrote one of the most in your face view of a meth addict, how they live, how little they care about anything but the drug. Such a stark contrast to the beautiful setting of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

So many great quotes I could copy but this small line just touched me.
"As the storm moves on, rain trickles off the leaves like an afterthought." Simple but lovely.

ARC from publishe

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LibraryThing member kcshankd

The best retiring sheriff's lament since _No Country For Old Men_. Uncorrected proof copy from Powell's Indiespensibles. Well worth the time, if at times a bit overwrought. An example:

"I sit on ground cooling, soon dew-damp. Near me a moldboard plow long left. Honeysuckle vines twine green cords,

white flowers attached like Christmas lights. I touch a handle slick from wrist shifts and sweaty grips. Memory of my grandfather's hands, calluses round and smooth as worn coins."

This book shifts between several characters, all written in first person. Several times I had to re-read (short) chapters to figure out who 'I' was.

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LibraryThing member froxgirl

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 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."

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LibraryThing member zmagic69

I have never read a book by this author before, but wow what writing. Poetry in motion combined with the best storytelling results in a fantastic book. A story of bent and broken people making their way through life, with all of the beauty of their surrounding and the ugliness of humanity. This is

an exceptional book.

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LibraryThing member bookmuse56

Once again Ron Rash has provided a riveting read that pulls the reader into the story with poetic language and strong characterization with an unsettling plot set in contemporary town in the Appalachian region of North Carolina. While the action takes place over a couple of days before the local

sheriff retires, the flashbacks, the dialogue and landscape makes the reader feel like they know this time and place. Contrasting the beauty of the landscape and the harsh reality of surviving in a close-knit community where the past and present often live uneasily with each other. Most poignant to me is the exploration of crystal meth on this small community. While we often hear about drugs in an urban environment, much less is noted about meth in rural communities.
I have enjoyed all of the author’s books and his gritty storytelling of the Appalachian landscape.

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LibraryThing member Unkletom

I'm giving this book a 3.5. Ordinarily I probably would have rated this higher but Ron Rash is one of those authors that I expect more from. It just seemed rather lightweight for an author of his talents. This is no Serena that will stay with me for years to come.

LibraryThing member cuentosalgernon

This has been my first book by Ron Rash so I didn’t really know what was to expect from it. In spite of that, I feel a bit disappointed because the beginning looked quite promising, but as I went on reading I found myself losing some interest in the story.
Les, a rural sheriff, and Becky, a park

ranger with a traumatic past, are the two main characters in this novel, and although most of the chapters are from Les’s point of view, there quite a few in which we change to Becky’s point of view (much more poetical, even including some pieces of poetry, and full of musings about the beautiful surrounding nature), and I’m afraid the latter didn’t work for me.
In any case, there were aspects of this short novel I enjoyed enough as to make it a pleasant reading.

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LibraryThing member purpledog

Ron Rash is a masterful writer and this book did not disappoint. His characters are so real and not some Hollywood dressed up characters that would never exist in the real world.

The story was very believable and the compelling. Found it hard to but the book down.

LibraryThing member Beamis12

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LibraryThing member porch_reader

This story is told in the alternating voices of Les, a longtime sheriff who is about to retire, and Becky, a park ranger. In Les's last few days on the job, he is faced with a meth bust and the poisoning of a local river, and through flashbacks, we learn much about Les and Becky's pasts that shed

light on their reactions to current events. The writing is so beautiful that I almost wished I had read this one instead of listening, but the two narrators were excellent.

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LibraryThing member adrianburke

Well. This was readable but not up to the hype which other writers give Ron. Perhaps they were too rash.

LibraryThing member techeditor

ABOVE THE WATERFALL is a literary mystery, above all, literary. It is a character-driven novel with plot. It is poetic, especially in its descriptions of the natural setting in which most of the story takes place.

Les, a sheriff, and Becky, a park ranger, are the two main characters in ABOVE THE

WATERFALL. They share a love for the natural world they work and live in. But Les also sees the scum of the earth, including methadone addicts and their "labs." Les’s and Becky‘s first-person accounts are in alternating chapters throughout the book.The mystery: who dumped kerosene in a stream, killing trout important to the livelihoods of a resort owner and his employees?

This is a beautiful novel. Ron Rash's writing is gorgeous. Although he emphasizes character, he also gives the reader an intriguing mystery his characters deal with, each with their own baggage.

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LibraryThing member CasSprout

Lovely, poetic prose with excellent descriptions of nature and a good feel for current life in the Appalachian country. The characters are interesting but the plot is a bit predictable.

LibraryThing member JRobinW

This is my favorite Ron Rash novel!

LibraryThing member SheTreadsSoftly

Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash is a very highly recommended novel set in a small Appalachian town about two lonely people struggling to live with their haunted pasts. It is an eloquently written, poetic novel that is both a tribute to the healing power of nature and a mystery.

Becky is a park

ranger at Locust Creek Park who finds solace in the beauty of the North Carolina mountains. Becky carries many scars from her childhood when she survived a school shooting, and in her recent past when she believed in the wrong man. She finds comfort and peace in nature and needs the natural world to survive. She references heavily the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who found beauty in nature as well as the cave paintings of Lascaux.

Les is a sheriff on the verge of retirement. He is having a cabin built where he plans to retire and paint. He just has a few things to clear up before he goes, like another meth bust (and you never know how things can go wrong with meth-heads) and the truth behind the tension between Gerald Blackwelder, an irascible old farmer, and a new fishing resort. Les has some regrets in his past too that he is trying to deal with, as well as a debt that has never been repaid.

The novel alternates between the voices of Les and Becky. They are both wounded souls who take strength from observing and being in nature. They are also close friends and are able to speak about their past with each other. They seemingly want to have a closer relationship with each other, and have taken steps in that direction, but they are still reticent to make any real commitment.

While both voices propel the story forward, Becky's chapters are poetic and lyrical while Les's are written in a more traditional manner. The frank descriptions of meth addiction are brutal. Both Les and Becky have to "navigate currents of disillusionment and betrayal that will force them to question themselves and test their tentative bond..." when dealing with the dispute between the fishing resort and Gerald. Becky is a staunch supporter of Gerald and perhaps his only friend now. Les was friends with an employee for the fishing resort and, as a longtime resident of the town, he knows all the people involved, their past actions, and where to look for answers.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.

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LibraryThing member tbritny

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 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)

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LibraryThing member almin

Enjoyed...slow start but writing and observations were wonderful.

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