Rootedness and Mobility: Southern Sacrifice Zones in Ron Rash’s Serena

MICHAEL J. BEILFUSS Oklahoma State University Rootedness and Mobility: Southern Sacrifice Zones in Ron Rash’s Serena WHEN HE WAS ASKED IF HE SAW HIMSELF OPERATING “WITHIN A SOUTHERN tradition” and what he thought of that “pigeonholing,” Ron Rash responded in the affirmative with the stipulation that he is a “Southern Appalachian” writer and that “the best Southern writing transcends the region.” He goes on to explain that he wants to follow a tradition of O’Connor,Faulkner,andWelty“becausethosearewriterswhoachieved great regard and a wonderful readership outside the region.” He continues: The one thing that bothers me about that term ‘Southern writer’ is that, particularly in the U.S. outside the South, it means that’s all you are. Your work doesn’t transcend the South. It’s mere local color. . . . I think it’s a weird time to be a Southern writer in the United States, as far as getting acknowledged outside the region. The New York Times will rarely review Southern writers. (Bjerre 226) Whether itistrueornot,1 hisresponsedemonstrates a self-consciousness abouttheperceivedprovincialismofthesouthernnovelist.What’smore, there is even a touch of exceptionalism mixed in with his fear of being dismissed as “local color.” He complains that the New York Times doesn’t review southern writers because it seems to believe that “it’s not fair” that the South keeps “producing the best writers.” Despite this internal strife, Rash argues that “Outside the United States, from my sense of it, Southern Literature is held in higher regard.”2 The contrast between a global appeal and a national ignorance itself falls squarely within a tradition of southern writing. For a case in point, consider 1 Rash’s novel Serena, which was published shortly after the interview cited, did indeed receive glowing reviews in the New York Times, among other publications. It is worth noting, however, that Janet Maslin’s review in the Times makes hardly any reference to the environmental aspects of the novel. 2 This may be true. According to John Lang, Rash “has been invited to give readings and to meet with university students in France, Australia, and Ireland, among other countries, and his work is widely reviewed abroad” (5). 378 Michael J. Beilfuss Faulkner’s early lack of critical and popular success domestically while Sartre was singing his praises in France. The literary and cultural dismissal of the South (as provincial, “mere local color,” backward)— whether real or imagined—aligns with a tradition of environmental disregard, or even degradation of the southern landscape. Similar to the desert Southwest, the South has long been viewed as a place where undesirable and pollutingindustriesmay flourish with little government regulation or oversight. Quasi-governmental organizations like the TVA fundamentally alter the landscape with little regard for the people who dwell there. Sacrifice and removal of the disempowered local populace seems to have been the mantra of the dominant culture since European contact. The history of the Smoky Mountains and the national park that bears their name offers a ready example: first the Cherokee were displaced to make room for European settlers, then, after developing a subsistence mountain culture, poor whites were displaced by the logging industry,andfinallythefewremaininginhabitantswereremoved bythe US government to make room for the national park. The cultures that live at the margins of American society often find themselves displaced, dispossessed, and sacrificed. Generally, then, the South is viewed from the outside as a poor despoiled place, never fully recovered or reconstructed. It is depicted as the place of ruined plantations, junkyards, and poverty. In a coffee table book meant to celebrate the beauty of the Southern landscape, Edward Abbey is sure to point out that the ditches along the highways “are sprinkled . . . with glittering aluminum litter” and that the “hillsides are carpeted with a layer of automobile hulks” that have been left to rust after breaking down (16). While visiting the South to report on the TellicoDam,anothernaturewriter,PeterMatthiessen,explainedthathe “had not expected that the place would be so lovely” (32). For some, rural environments in the South evoke thoughts of terror: chainsaw massacres, hillbilly rape, drug addiction, and back-country Klan meetings.3 So it is no surprise that despite having some of the most biologically diverse territory in...