One of the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023
The first novel in 10 years and 20th book from award-winning author Ron Rash, “one of the great American authors at work today” —The New York Times)
Told against the backdrop of the Korean War as a small Appalachian town sends its sons to battle, The Caretaker is a breathtaking love story and a searing examination of the acts we seek to justify in the name of duty, family, honor, and love.
It’s 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob’s wife, Naomi, as well.
Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is an outcast in Blowing Rock, an outsider, poor and uneducated, who works as a seasonal maid in the town’s most elegant hotel. When Naomi eloped with Jacob a few months after her arrival, the marriage scandalized the community, most of all his wealthy parents who disinherited him. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer and closer until a shattering development derails numerous lives.
A tender examination of male friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting, page-turning novel of familial devotion, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for delusion and destruction all too often justified as acts of love.
Available everywhere books are sold:
Available in the UK:
Praise for The Caretaker
“With each Ron Rash story, you expect flawed people trying desperately to survive against the odds, and a rich sense of place, and images that linger, and beautiful language that you catch yourself reading over and over. What you don’t always expect is a wicked plot. The Caretaker delivers all of the above in a story that becomes a race to the finish.”
“With pulsing drama from the outset, The Caretaker can be hard to put down from one chapter to the next. Rash’s touch depicting the early 1950s in Appalachia also makes turning pages a pleasure. [The Caretaker] is crafted with the closely observed descriptions of Appalachian life that have marked [Rash’s] career. . . Rash has conjured a kind of rough-hewn Americana with his prose. He may be regionally focused in his fiction, but his works tap deep veins of human nature and national strife.”
“Masterful. . . [The Caretaker] adds immeasurably to his well-earned reputation as a lyrical and authentic storyteller able to immerse readers in the Appalachian landscape that is Rash’s heritage while crafting stories that deftly reveal universal truths of our shared experiences. . . While Rash has often been heralded as the ‘Appalachian Shakespeare,’ Shakespearean is far too small of a word to fully capture the literary achievement of Rash’s intricately plotted poetic exploration of the capacity of the human heart to harm, to heal and, ultimately, to hope. . . The Caretaker is itself a promise kept from writer to readers, a promise that an award-winning writing career now spanning some 30 years, which has traversed fully rendered worlds of darkness, violence and death, still can culminate in a moment of hope, love and redemption, and a light shining brightly towards an as of yet unrealized future. Juxtaposed against the backdrop of the shadowy roads and rivers that have led Rash and his readers here, the beacon of The Caretaker is all the more guiding and all the more necessary.”
“Gripping. . . Simply stated, The Caretaker is one of Rash’s finest novels, impressing on multiple levels. Rash expertly toggles back and forth to reveal key developments at different moments in time. His characters ring true. . . As ever, the rugged beauty of the landscape is richly conveyed. . . Supremely accomplished storytelling.”
“Tantamount to a Shakespearean tragedy in rhythm, scope and dynamic. The Appalachian set story is paced in five balanced acts taut with white knuckle drama and fueled by the gamut of human emotions. . . Everything the reader hopes to get from Ron Rash is in The Caretaker: landscape as destiny, salt of the earth main characters caught in a moral dilemma, a chorus of porch-sitting townsmen lending pithy commentary, the influence of nature, and the steady beats of regional jargon so finely tuned it elicits language as character in a manner so economic that every word counts. . . The Caretaker stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the multiple award-winning books in Ron Rash’s impressive body of work. Its somber, realistic tone will captivate the authors’ legion of devoted readers and send the uninitiated straight to Ron Rash’s celebrated backlist.”
“Rash is a savvy writer who delves deeply into each character’s motivations, and he turns a simple tale of grief and prejudice into a complex and satisfying read. . . A marvel of concision and empathy. The Caretaker is another memorable work from a bard of the American South”
“Rash is incomparable in his expressive and evocative writing, and his ability to breathe life into these unforgettable characters. . . [An] emotional, sensitive, thought-provoking love story.”
“[An] unpredictable story of love, loss and honor that reads like a folktale in the making.”
“Gripping. . . Lyrical. . . Contains overtones of Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy. . . [The Caretaker is a] melancholy fable of haunted loves and losses.”
“Among [Rash’s] finest, which, considering the depth and breadth of his body of work, is no small feat. . . A dramatic and propulsive read, a dark book laced with violence and a betrayal of Shakespearean proportions. . . Yet for all that, there is much wonderful humor, and at its heart, a profound and hard-earned tenderness. . . As we consider the power and depth of The Caretaker and of all the novels and stories and poems that now shape the author’s profound body of work, there’s no question that Ron Rash and his Carolina mountains have earned a place [alongside Faulkner’s Mississippi, Munro’s Ontario, and Marquez’s Colombia].”
“Stellar. . . Rash writes about the North Carolina mountains and their inhabitants with exceptional beauty and grace. In The Caretaker, he has created a Shakespearian plot so riveting that it begs to be read in one sitting. . . Rash’s prose is spare, yet piercingly sharp. . . Like Richard Russo, he’s a narrative maestro who creates entire communities, giving brief but meaningful backstories to characters big and small. . . Readers will likely find themselves galloping toward the end of this novel, but should be sure to stop to appreciate its quieter moments. . . The Caretaker is an unforgettable novel of class, power, war, family, yearning and betrayal. Don’t miss it.”
“Potent and rewarding. . . Rash expertly and seamlessly ratchets up the suspense and melodrama. . . The lyrically nuanced prose faithfully evokes the Appalachian landscape, and Rash again showcases an ability to dig beneath the surface of his characters to expose their base desires and intentions. This is exactly the kind of humanitarian storytelling that fans have come to expect and savor from him.”
“A nimbly plotted, suspenseful romance with a twist. . . Rash writes with finesse and affection, as usual, of western North Carolina and its people. But the mood isn’t mere nostalgia—there’s a flint and an unflinching realism underneath. . . Rash’s 20th book is among his best.”
“[Rash is a] master storyteller. . . In lyrical understated prose, Rash explores themes of devotion, deception, and family ties in this unforgettable story that will appeal to fans of Alice Munro and William Kent Krueger.”