by Ron Rash
First published 2020
Serena Pemberton comes back to the North Carolina mountains she once ravaged. The child she failed to eliminate still lives, still poses a danger to everything she built through violence and greed. Her return sets in motion a final reckoning in the wilderness she left broken. But Serena's story forms just one thread in this collection. Across ten tales, ordinary people confront the machinery of profit that chews up both land and lives. Pills promise relief from pain but deliver only numbness. Corporate interests sever communities from the natural world that once sustained them. Yet amid this destruction, small acts of courage emerge. Neighbors help neighbors. Strangers show unexpected kindness. People choose decency when easier paths beckon. The mountains witness both humanity's worst impulses and its stubborn capacity for good.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, small-town
Setting: North Carolina, Appalachian Mountains
Period: 21st-century
220 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: violence