Synopses & Reviews
Will Alexander is the sheriff in a small town in southern Appalachia, and he knows that the local thug Holland Winchester has been murdered. The only thing is the sheriff can find neither the body nor someone to attest to the killing. Simply, almost elementally told through the voices of the sheriff, a local farmer, his beautiful wife, their son, and the sheriff's deputy,
One Foot in Eden signals the bellwether arrival of one the most mature and distinctive voices in southern literature.
Review
"A classic tale of passion and tragedy. Each voice rings as true as the sound of an ax in the cold early morning air." Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls
Review
"Equal parts vintage crime novel and Southern Gothic, full of aching ambivalence and hard compromises, and rounded off by bad faith and bad choices, One Foot in Eden is a veritable garden of earthly disquiet." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Ruggedly beautiful...Reading Rash's tale is like listening to a plaintive mountain ballad about a time and place long vanished: the lyrics are sweet and mournful, wistful and dark. And, oh, does One Foot in Eden linger!" The Charlotte Observer
Review
"Rash's characters have a heroic quality as they struggle to fill the empty spaces in their hearts. They also have a poetic intensity." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Review
"One Foot In Eden is a story of wild, almost primitive force and yet it is neatly and ingeniously put together. Ron Rash knows to the core the ways of those who yearn for what is just beyond their grasp. Here is a lasting experience." Fred Chappell, Poet Laureate of North Carolina
About the Author
Ron Rash currently lives in Clemson, South Carolina. He is the author of several collections of short fiction and poetry, and has had his work featured in
The Yale Review, The Oxford American, and elsewhere. This is his first novel. Henry Holt will publish his second in summer 2004.