Third Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

Serena by Ron Rash. Harper Collins, 2008. Genre: Fiction

Serena is the fourth novel written by Ron Rash. The newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton move to the mountains of North Carolina. There they have a logging company, and George also has a son that he had with a local girl. Serena quickly proves that she is worthy of the respect of every man in the camp. Serena learns that she is incapable of bearing a child, and so she tries to kill the baby that Pemberton had with the local girl. Pemberton tries to protect the baby without Serena knowing, but she finds out. This causes a rift in their relationship, adding tension to the plot.
“Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor.” (Book Jacket) This quote sums up the general idea of most of the story. Pemberton and Serena, surviving in the mountain wilderness, making their permanent marks on the lives of everyone the come into contact with.
As you can guess, the conflict of the story is the fact that Serena wishes to kill Pemberton’s son, and he has to try to protect his son, while at the same time appeasing his wife. Apart from the well-developed conflict, the setting was described with great detail. Rash uses uncommon adjectives to describe some things, but it always leaves you with a clear mental image of the scene that he wished you to see. The time period, 1929, is also portrayed very effectively. The characters all wear the type of clothes that would be worn in the in the 1920’s, and the dialect also sounds as if Rash actually traveled back in time and studied the dialect and diction of the era.
It may seem odd, but the writing style of many authors annoys me a great deal. At first I thought that Ron Rash was going to be another one of those authors that I can’t stand reading. Well, it turns out that my assumption was far from accurate. I am not sure whether it is the balance between contemplative thought and hectic commotion, but something just kept me interested in the story, even in the slowest, simplest parts of the story. I would gladly read another one of Ron Rash’s stories, and I very well may do just that next quarter.