Understanding Ron Rash

Title Page, Other Works in the Series, Copyright, Dedication

Understanding ron rash Understanding Contemporary ameriCan LiteratUre Matthew J. Bruccoli, Founding Editor Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor Volumes on Edward Albee | Sherman Alexie | Nelson Algren | Paul Auster Nicholson Baker | John Barth | Donald Barthelme | The Beats Thomas Berger | The Black Mountain Poets | Robert Bly | T. C. Boyle Truman Capote | Raymond Carver | Michael Chabon | Fred Chappell Chicano Literature | Contemporary American Drama Contemporary American Horror Fiction Contemporary American Literary Theory Contemporary American Science Fiction, 1926–1970 Contemporary American Science Fiction, 1970–2000 Contemporary Chicana Literature | Robert Coover | Philip K. Dick James Dickey | E. L. Doctorow | Rita Dove | John Gardner | George Garrett Tim Gautreaux | John Hawkes | Joseph Heller | Lillian Hellman | Beth Henley James Leo Herlihy | David Henry Hwang | John Irving | Randall Jarrell Charles Johnson | Diane Johnson | Adrienne Kennedy | William Kennedy Jack Kerouac | Jamaica Kincaid | Etheridge Knight | Tony Kushner Ursula K. Le Guin | Denise Levertov | Bernard Malamud | David Mamet Bobbie Ann Mason | Colum McCann | Cormac McCarthy | Jill McCorkle Carson McCullers | W. S. Merwin | Arthur Miller | Stephen Millhauser Lorrie Moore | Toni Morrison’s Fiction | Vladimir Nabokov | Gloria Naylor Joyce Carol Oates | Tim O’Brien | Flannery O’Connor | Cynthia Ozick Suzan-Lori Parks | Walker Percy | Katherine Anne Porter | Richard Powers Reynolds Price | Annie Proulx | Thomas Pynchon | Theodore Roethke Philip Roth | Richard Russo | May Sarton | Hubert Selby, Jr. | Mary Lee Settle Sam Shepard | Neil Simon | Isaac Bashevis Singer | Jane Smiley | Gary Snyder William Stafford | Robert Stone | Anne Tyler | Gerald Vizenor | Kurt Vonnegut David Foster Wallace | Robert Penn Warren | James Welch | Eudora Welty Edmund White | Tennessee Williams | August Wilson | Charles Wright Understanding RON RASH John Lang The University of South Carolina Press © 2014 University of South Carolina Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208 www.sc.edu/uscpress 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lang, John, 1947– Understanding Ron Rash / John Lang. pages cm. — (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61117-411-3 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-61117-412-0 (ebook) 1. Rash, Ron, 1953– —Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PS3568.A698Z73 2014 813'.54—dc23 2014007288 For Nathan and Lesa, Sarah and Joseph This page intentionally left blank ...