A review by bluepigeon
Burning Bright by Ron Rash

5.0

This is the first book by Ron Rash that I read, and I will certainly read more of his work based on this experience. Rash brings the daily existence of mostly poor or down and out people to focus with unsentimental language that is sparse, yet ripe. I liked all the stories here, but perhaps my favorite is The Ascent, in which Jared makes repeated trips to a fallen plane that authorities are still looking for, returning with a ring that his meth addict parents pawn off for drugs and a bike for him. He is no fool; he knows it is only a matter of time before the bike, which had been promised to him for Christmas, will also be pawned off, but he does not protest. He just visits the plane wreck that nobody has managed to find, despite the helicopters circling above. Like in The Ascent, not much happens in most of the stories in this collection; nothing much that is drastic from an outside point of view, that is. Otherwise a lot happens: an owl perches on a large tree, its eye set on the neighbor's girl, and the large tree has to come down to fend it off, and a pawnshop owner has to straighten out his meth addict nephew, and soldier comes home after killing a Japanese soldier in the Philippines, and Lily, the wife of a Lincolnite, has to kill a Mr. Vaughn, a Confederate, to protect her family with one of her knitting needles. The title story, Burning Bright, is especially well crafted, leaving us to wonder if it will ever rain again, and save the forest from the arsonist, and the arsonist from himself.

Recommended for fans of Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, and Tom Drury.