Customer Reviews

One Foot in Eden: A Novel

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have read hundreds of books. It seems that over time one becomes difficult to please because we've seen everything before. Similar plots, characters and settings leave us wanting and feeling unfulfilled. Not with Rash's One Foot in Eden. This book delivers. Suspenseful story, wonderful, rich characters, twisting plot, and a great location.
The story is told by the main characters, each taking their place on center stage and relating the story through their eyes. But they don't tell the same story. The story changes in new hues and tints as each character puts a new and different interpretation on the tale. Each character in turn advances the story as well. What a great way to tell a story.
And by the way, the ending is fitting and makes you want to pick up another Rash story....but there arent any.......YET.

Ron Rash is one of North Carolina's finest poets. Set in the Jocassee Valley in the southern Appalachians, One Foot in Eden is a taut, compelling story of infidelity and revenge killing that has the feel of archetypal mountain legend, a sort of "Lord Randall" updated by a psychological realist. A nifty and quite cunning murder mystery plot is parceled out to readers, Roshomon-style, from the cross-angled, and occasionally contradictory, first-person testimonies of the major players: the high sheriff, who knows murder has been done and who has done it, but can't find a body; the murderer himself; the adulterous wife for whom he kills; the bastard son of the illicit union; the deputy, a sort of Everyman, who serves as the reader's proxy and comes on, like Horatio in Act V, to wonder over the principals' unraveled fates. (There's also a witch!) For me, in some ways, the most compelling character is the Appalachian landscape, which Rash delivers tersely, with a poet's exacting eye and speech. Ultimately, One Foot in Eden is a parable about the pursuit of justice-its elusiveness at the human level, its certainty from the divine. True statement: I read the book-which is only 200 pages-- in a single sitting and couldn't (didn't) put it down.

Rash proves to be as sure-footed with prose as he is with his poetry. In fact, EDEN does not have the feel of a first novel. Into the mix the writer pours ghostly imagery, mystery, indirect old testament allusions and the great themes of loyalty and moral retribution.

The setting is as startlingly real as in Rash's poems of Apalachia. The characters and language are authentic, and the author manages to nail all five of the narrative voices that reveal each layer of the story.

ONE FOOT IN EDEN is a fine accomplishment by a man who has already established himself in another genre. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

It's always a pleasure to discover a first novel with such depth and promise. Author Ron Rash does not disappoint with this lyrical Southern Gothic murder mystery that is so much more than a crime story. Told through the changing voices of the main characters this novel is rich with passion, tragedy and redemption. It's also a fine mystery that will keep you guessing throughout, as things are rarely as they first appear in this story. Ultimately, the truths of the dead will return to avenge the lies of the living. Worth seeking out. 4.5 stars.

This is one of those books that when you finish the last page, you get a chill down your spine. It was an incredible story about the lengths one woman and her husband would go to to have a child, and to try and cover up the secrets of the past, much like their beloved farm would soon be covered by water.

I'm not going to summarize this book as it's been done here already, but I definitely, definitely recommend it. Mr. Rash has a way of telling this story that makes you feel like your right there in the Appalachia's. And the ending, when the Deputy is out on the lake, looking down into the crystal clear water, I felt like I myself was seeing everything he saw...and I was just as creeped out as he was by it.

You can't help but love a book that stirs up so many different feelings when reading it, and that's just what this one does. I've put Mr. Rash's second novel 'Saints at the River' on my wish list, and won't let it sit there nearly as long as this book did. I'm just so glad I finally read this.

I don't know how to describe this book without giving away too much of the plot. It's a murder mystery, told through the words of several storytellers. Each one knows only what he or she has experienced personally, and each expands the narrative until the reader finally knows exactly what happened, and more importantly, WHY it happened. I read this in nearly one sitting, starting one night until I fell asleep, and finishing the rest the next day...partially by candlelight during the power outage after the recent ice storm here in NC. The characters are wonderful and so real, I feel like I know them and I never questioned their choices. Ron Rash has created a true tragedy, where the behavior of each person is logical and their resultant suffering is inevitable. I can't wait until he writes another book.

Ron Rash has written a beautifully told story about desire, heartbreak, cunning, murder and justice. He's done it in simple language and in a riviting style. Broken into 5 sections, each character tells the story from their own perspective. Ron lays out each section in such as a way that the story never becomes repetitive and the book is riviting. The Apalachian language with colloquialisms is delightful, making me want to read lines over again for their color and style, as well as content.

I hope Ron Rash is currently working on a second novel because I will be looking for it every day until I can purchase it!
I gladly give this book a 5 star rating.

I had read Ron Rash's three books of poetry and found his work extraordinary before I learned that he had also ventured into fiction. Then I became aware of Mr. Rash's two short story collections. I read them and found that this man, whom I had thought to be pure poet, was capable of a lyrical, poetic prose that I found engaging. It had the "feel" of endurance about it. But when I read Mr. Rash's first novel, gulping it down almost in one sitting, I was absolutely convinced that a major talent had come among us. Ron Rash can easily take his place alongside any number of the older, more established, and, alas, even major, novelists of the American South. I await Rash's second novel with bated breath. But I hope he will not forsake poetry. We readers need him in both genres--poetry as well as fiction.

Set in the Appalachian South, One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash is a dark and powerfully written novel of love, secrets, and murder. An unsolved killing remains covered up for years until one day the power company forces people off their land and floods their farms. Terrible hidden motives beneath a closely bound rural community pervade this fascinating and engaging literary study showcasing the turns and twists of human nature.

Ron Rash is one of SOUTH CAROLINA's finest poets and has now proven that he is one of its finest young novelists as well. This first effort brings to gripping life the South Carolina upcountry of the post-WWII years. His descriptions of the once pristine Jocassee Valley and now-lost parts of Oconee County are are as tangible and poetic as Conroy at the top of his game. You will become entangled in the dramatic lives of his simple, mountain folk who are at the crossroads of a world that is changing much too fast.
While I love his verse, I can't wait for Rash's next prose effort. If this novel is a harbinger, we have a great new novelist in our midst.