by Ron Rash
First published 2007
Three elderly men wade into familiar waters, tracking a massive fish that exists only in their shared obsession. Around them, their Appalachian community wrestles with forces that threaten to erase everything they know. A depressed man straps on diving gear and descends into the town reservoir, seeking something beneath the surface that pills and doctors cannot provide. A mother who lost her son to murderers guides a county surveyor deep into the mountains, determined to settle once and for all where the killing happened. Across a full century of stories, neighbors watch as mining companies, developers, and federal projects remake their landscape. Old ways of living collide with new realities as families decide what they can preserve and what they must surrender. Each character faces the same question: how do you hold onto who you are when the world insists you become someone else? These Appalachian voices speak from the fault line between past and future, where survival means choosing which pieces of yourself to save.
Genres: family-life, american-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, small-town
Setting: Appalachia
Period: 20th Century, 21st Century
230 pages · Paperback · Picador