The Caretaker

Reviews / Votes

Ron Rash is an American master who writes the heart's language with tremendous grit and grace -- PAUL LYNCH [Rash's] vivid, lyrical stories of rural American life deal in minute specificity . . . The Caretaker is a tender, neatly crafted tale of a close-knit 1950s North Carolina community grappling with the macro (the Korean war, conservative values, prejudices) and the micro (family secrets, parental deceptions, star-crossed lovers). For an introduction to Rash's evocative world, start here * * Observer * * With each Ron Rash story, you expect flawed people trying desperately to survive against the odds and a rich sense of place, and images that linger, and beautiful language that you catch yourself reading over and over. What you don't always expect is a wicked plot. The Caretaker delivers all of the above in a story that becomes a race to the finish -- JOHN GRISHAM Splendid in its evocation of time and place. [Rash] is a writer who never sets out to impress but is always impressive. There are novels you enjoy and forget. Ron Rash is one whose books always invite a second reading; they are true to life, to experience and imagination - rich treasure. The Caretaker is one of his best -- ALLAN MASSIE * * Scotsman * * Thrilling . . . In [The Caretaker] the outcast has a heart of gold, teenage love is true love and, like the goods on display at Weaver's Hardware, everything finds its right place * * Times Literary Supplement * * Hard to put down . . . [Ron Rash] may be regionally focused in his fiction, but his works tap deep veins of human nature and national strife * * Independent * * Ron Rash is a vivid chronicler of deprived rural America . . . There is a taut, atmospheric melodrama . . . at the heart of this book * * The Times * * If it's a gripping yarn you're after, look no further than this stirring tale of intergenerational deceit set in small-town America during the Korean war * * Daily Mail * * [An] Immersive novel . . . Explores the reverberations of a young man's decision to elope with a teen-age hotel maid * * New Yorker * * Rash . . is one of America's most respected novelists, poets and short story writers . . . Rash has been compared to John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy and his spare prose and deference to nature's brutality recall both authors, but I was also reminded of Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These here, and her protagonist Bill Furlong, the good man trying to do the right thing in a community that prefers to look away and maintain the status quo -- EDEL COFFEY * * Irish Times * *