Ron Rash has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is Serena.
Serena
Summary
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire, vowing to let no one stand in their way, especially those newly rallying around Teddy Roosevelt's nascent environmental movement. Yet when Serena begins to suspect that George's allegiances may lie elsewhere, she unleashes her full fury on the young mountain woman who bore his illegitimate child the year before. Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a powerfully riveting story that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.
©2008 Ron Rash (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Une terre d'ombre
Summary
Laurel Shelton est vouée à une vie isolée avec son frère - revenu de la Première Guerre mondiale amputé d'une main - dans la ferme héritée de leurs parents, au fond d'un vallon encaissé que les habitants de la ville considèrent comme maudit : rien n'y pousse et les malheurs s'y accumulent. Marquée par ce lieu, et par une tache de naissance qui oblitère sa beauté, la jeune femme est considérée par tous comme rien moins qu'une sorcière. Sa vie bascule lorsqu'elle rencontre au bord de la rivière un mystérieux inconnu, muet, qui joue divinement d'une flûte en argent. L'action va inexorablement glisser de l'émerveillement de la rencontre au drame, imputable exclusivement à l'ignorance et à la peur d'une population nourrie de préjugés et ébranlée par les échos de la guerre. La splendeur de la nature, le silence et la musique apportent un contrepoint sensible à l'intolérance, à la xénophobie et à un patriotisme buté qui tourne à la violence aveugle. Après Le Monde à l'endroit (Seuil, 2012), Une terre d'ombre prolonge une réflexion engagée par l'auteur sur la folie guerrière des hommes, tout en développant pour la première fois dans son œuvre romanesque une histoire d'amour tragique qui donne à ce récit poignant sa dimension universelle.
©2014 Éditions du Seuil. Traduit de l'anglais (États-Unis) par Isabelle Reinharez (P)2019 Éditions Thélème
The Cove
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of Serena returns to Appalachia, this time at the height of World War I, with the story of a blazing but doomed love affair caught in the turmoil of a nation at war.... Deep in the rugged Appalachians of North Carolina lies the cove, a dark, forbidding place where spirits and fetches wander, and even the light fears to travel. Or so the townsfolk of Mars Hill believe - just as they know that Laurel Shelton, the lonely young woman who lives within its shadows, is a witch. Alone except for her brother, Hank, newly returned from the trenches of France, she aches for her life to begin. Then it happens - a stranger appears, carrying nothing but a beautiful silver flute and a note explaining that his name is Walter, he is mute, and is bound for New York. Laurel finds him in the woods, nearly stung to death by yellow jackets, and nurses him back to health. As the days pass, Walter slips easily into life in the cove and into Laurel's heart, bringing her the only real happiness she has ever known. But Walter harbors a secret that could destroy everything - and danger is closer than they know. Though the war in Europe is near its end, patriotic fervor flourishes thanks to the likes of Chauncey Feith, an ambitious young army recruiter who stokes fear and outrage throughout the county. In a time of uncertainty, when fear and ignorance reign, Laurel and Walter will discover that love may not be enough to protect them. This lyrical, heartrending tale, as mesmerizing as its award-winning predecessor Serena, shows once again this masterful novelist at the height of his powers.
©2012 Ron Rash (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers
Something Rich and Strange
Summary
From the acclaimed, New York Times best-selling, award-winning author of Serena and The Cove, 30 of his finest short stories, collected in one volume. No one captures the complexities of Appalachia - a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty - as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, two O Henry prizes, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Rash brilliantly illuminates the tensions between the traditional and the modern, the old and new south, tenderness and violence, man and nature. Though the focus is regional, the themes of Rash’s work are universal, striking an emotional chord that resonates deep within each of our lives. Something Rich and Strange showcases this revered master's artistry and craftsmanship in 30 stories culled from his previously published collections Nothing Gold Can Stay, Burning Bright, Chemistry, and The Night New Jesus Fell to Earth. Each work of short fiction demonstrates Rash's dazzling ability to evoke the heart and soul of this land and its people - men and women inexorably tethered to the geography that defines and shapes them. Filled with suspense and myth, hope and heartbreak, told in language that flows like "shimmering, liquid poetry" (Atlanta Journal Constitution), Something Rich and Strange is an iconic work from an American literary virtuoso.
©2014 Ron Rash (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
In the Valley
Summary
Named a Garden & Gun and Atlanta Journal Constitution best book of the year Winner of the 2020 Thomas Robinson Prize for Southern Literature "Mesmerizing.... He's one of the best living American writers." (Janet Maslin, New York Times Book Review) From best-selling and award-winning writer Ron Rash - "One of the great American authors at work today." (The New York Times) - comes a collection of 10 searing stories and the return of the villainess who propelled Serena to national acclaim, in a long-awaited novella. Ron Rash has long been a revered presence in the landscape of American letters. A virtuosic novelist, poet, and story writer, he evokes the beauty and brutality of the land, the relentless tension between past and present, and the unquenchable human desire to be a little bit better than circumstances would seem to allow (to paraphrase Faulkner). In these 10 stories, Rash spins a haunting allegory of the times we live in - rampant capitalism, the severing of ties to the natural world in the relentless hunt for profit, the destruction of body and soul with pills meant to mute our pain - and yet within this world he illuminates acts of extraordinary decency and heroism. Two of the stories have already been singled out for accolades: "Baptism" was chosen by Roxane Gay for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2018, and "Neighbors" was selected by Jonathan Lethem for The Best American Mystery Stories 2019. And in revisiting Serena Pemberton, Rash updates his best-selling parable of greed run amok as his deliciously vindictive heroine returns to the North Carolina wilderness she left scarred and desecrated to make one final effort to kill the child that threatens all she has accomplished. "A gorgeous, brutal writer" (Richard Price) working at the height of his powers, Ron Rash has created another mesmerizing look at the imperfect world around us.
©2020 Ron Rash (P)2020 Random House Audio
The Risen
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Ron Rash demonstrates his superb narrative skills in this suspenseful and evocative tale of two brothers whose lives are altered irrevocably by the events of one long-ago summer - and one bewitching young woman - and the secrets that could destroy their lives. While swimming in a secluded creek on a hot Sunday in 1969, 16-year-old Eugene and his older brother, Bill, meet the entrancing Ligeia. A sexy, free-spirited redhead from Daytona Beach banished to their small North Carolina town until the fall, Ligeia will not only bewitch the two brothers but lure them into a struggle that reveals the hidden differences in their natures. Drawn in by her raw sensuality and rebellious attitude, Eugene falls deeper under her spell. Ligeia introduces him to the thrills and pleasures of the counterculture movement, then in its headiest moment. But just as the movement's youthful optimism turns dark elsewhere in the country that summer, so does Eugene and Ligeia's brief romance. Eugene moves further and further away from his brother, the cautious and dutiful Bill, and when Ligeia vanishes as suddenly as she appeared, the growing rift between the two brothers becomes immutable. Decades later their relationship is still turbulent, and the once close brothers now lead completely different lives. Bill is a gifted and successful surgeon, a paragon of the community, while Eugene, the town reprobate, is a failed writer and determined alcoholic. When a shocking reminder of the past unexpectedly surfaces, Eugene is plunged back into that fateful summer and the girl he cannot forget. The deeper he delves into his memories, the closer he comes to finding the truth. But can Eugene's recollections be trusted? And will the truth set him free and offer salvation...or destroy his damaged life and everyone he loves?
©2016 Ron Rash (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers