the crookedness of the world made straight

books:

	• The World Made Straight: A Novel Ron Rash Henry Holt and Co., 2006 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Gritty and slow

This is probably my least favorite of all of Rash's works. I thought the backstory of the Civil War slaughter was a pretty weak platform on which to rest a lot of the contemporary story. And the grittiness made me squirm. Maybe that was the author's intent, but I kept wanting to take a shower!

As usual, the character development was good, but that was not enough to sustain the book. I kept reading because I hoped I would feel differently about the book by the end, but I didn't.

I am looking forward to his upcoming book, "Serena". Sounds like a winner.

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It hooked me.

This is the first book that I read by Ron Rash and it left me wanting more. I thought it was a great book with characters that we can relate too and (as always with Rash) wonderful scenery. I however don't think that this is his best book as I feel "One Foot in Eden" was a better novel, but I would recommend this book to anyone. I did give it five stars for the simple fact of it introducing me to an amazing author.

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A major voice in American letters

Few writers can expose the complexities in an array of characters like Ron Rash. Just when you think you know who're the bad guys and who're the good guys, Rash shows us that below the surface we all struggle with soical pressures, we all try desperately to overcome our fears and inadequacies, and none of us can hold on to the truth long enough to look it fully in the face.

Rash is indeed a Southern writer, but don't look for stereotypes here. He has studied his people with anthropologist's and insider's eyes and illustrates how complex the South, even one particular Southern region, is.

Read only a page, and you will surely guess (and you'll be correct) that Rash is also a poet. Some of the passages in this and his other novels are lyrically astonishing, and even more amazing is that they never distract from the narrative.

Don't miss this major American writer.

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the crookedness of the world made straight

The World Made Straight is an expansion of the short story "Speckled Trout" in the author's short story collection Chemistry. Another short story in that book. Pemberton's Bride, has just been expanded and released as a powerful and harrowing novel Serena. The short story centered on Travis Shelton, who discovers a marijuana patch owned by the Toomey family. Travis steals a few plants and sells them to Leonard Shuler, an ex-teacher who now makes his living dealing drugs. Travis gets a little too greedy, and on one of his return visits to steal more marijuana plants is caught by the 300-lb Carlton Toomey in a bear trap. The short story ends in an ambiguous manner--but the expectation is that Toomey will probably kill Travis. On the expansion into the novel, Travis is not, however killed, Leonard Shuler assumes a major role, and Carlton Toomey and his son Hubert are darkly looming presences.

The short story was tight, powerful, and dark. The expansion into a full-length novel fails to sustain the sense of power. Serena, by contrast, fully maintains the brooding dark depths of the short story Pemberton's Bride. Travis, disowned by his father, moves into Leonard's house trailer that Leonard shares with Dena, who is not exactly Leonard's girlfriend. Dena is a maddeningly unsatisfying element of the novel--she shares Leonard's bed, but is heavily into drugs and "dates" other men. Leonard doesn't seem to like her very much. She makes it more difficult to relate to Leonard. Much of the novel is devoted to Leonard showing Travis a Civil War battlefield and helping him get his GED. Leonard likes classical music and reading--the book's title comes from Handel's Messiah. There's a violent ending to go with the dark beginning, but in between there simply isn't the power that could have been there. It might have been better for the author to stick more with the drug dealing, the marijuana growing, etc.

So I would give the short story Speckled Trout a solid 5 stars, and I'd give The World Made Straight that same 5 stars for the beginning (which is the short story) and the ending, and in-between I'd give it 3 stars. By contrast, Serena rates 5 stars throughout the novel.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Travis Shelton is seventeen the summer he wanders onto a neighbor+s property in the woods, discovers a crop of marijuana large enough to make him some serious money, and steps into the jaws of a bear trap. After hours of passing in and out of consciousness, Travis is discovered by Carlton Toomey, the wise and vicious farmer who set the trap to protect his plants, and Travis+s confrontation with the subtle evils within his rural world has begun. Before long, Travis has moved out of his parents+ home to live with Leonard Shuler, a one-time schoolteacher who lost his job and custody of his daughter years ago, when he was framed by a vindictive student. Now Leonard lives with his dogs and his sometime girlfriend in a run-down trailer outside town, deals a few drugs, and studies journals from the Civil War. Travis becomes his student, of sorts, and the fate of these two outsiders becomes increasingly entwined as the community+s terrible past and corrupt present bear down on each of them from every direction, leading to a violent reckoning-not only with Carlton, but with the legacy of the Civil War massacre that, even after a century, continues to divide an Appalachian community.Vivid, harrowing, yet ultimately hopeful, The World Made Straight offers a powerful exploration of the painful conflict between the bonds of home and the desire for independence.

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