LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Set against in small-town North Carolina in 1951, Ron Rash’s The Caretaker is an exceptional novel. A perfectly-told tale of love and friendship, lies and loss that’ll have your heart in your mouth as it explores unbreakable bonds of love and brotherhood, and duplicitousness of the most despicable, destructive kind. Also encompassing class snobbery, small-town prejudice, and how some seek to justify terrible acts in the name of love, it’s a remarkably powerful read.
Disfigured by childhood polio, Blackburn tends the cemetery in the community of Blowing Rock. He’s largely an outcast, a young man who believes “the dead could do nothing worse to him than the living had already done.” When Jacob, his sole friend in the world, is conscripted to fight in Korea, Blackburn is entrusted with looking out for Jacob's pregnant wife, Naomi.
Also an outcast and from the wrong side of the tracks, uneducated Naomi is the reason Jacob’s wealthy parents have disinherited him, with the rest of the town also scandalised by their relationship. While Naomi and Blackburn await news of Jacob and her pregnancy blossoms, so too does their friendship, until an audacious act of deception tears lives asunder.
Suspenseful and stirring, with an incredible evocation of place, The Caretaker contrasts superciliousness and saving face masquerading as love with the real deal, and reels with truths about what it means to be a good person. I sure won’t forget Blackburn in a hurry.
Reviewed by Joanne OwenJoanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen About The Caretaker
It is 1951. The close-knit community of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, does not welcome those who are different.
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The Caretaker Synopsis
It is 1951. The close-knit community of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, does not welcome those who are different.
Jacob Hampton's wealthy parents disinherited him when he married Naomi, an uneducated hotel maid from out of town. They had bigger plans for him.
Now Jacob has been called up to fight in Korea, leaving a pregnant Naomi behind. The only person he can entrust to take care of her is his lifelong friend, Blackburn Gant. Blackburn, who tends the local cemetery alone, is an outsider too, his appearance irrevocably altered by childhood disease.
Slowly the two outcasts grow closer, their friendship blooming under small acts of kindness. Then, as they await news of Jacob's return, a terrible, shattering act of deception derails all their lives. But no secret can stay hidden for ever.
Tender and luminous with truth, The Caretaker is a riveting story about the bonds of friendship, the contradictions of family and what it really means to love.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781805301653 |
| Publication date: |
2nd November 2023 |
| Author: |
Ron Rash |
| Publisher: |
Canongate Books |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
272 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Ron Rash Press Reviews
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 -- JOHN GRISHAM
There's a flint and an unflinching realism underneath . . . Rash's 20th book is among his best -Kirkus Reviews
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 savour from him - Publishers Weekly
Praise for Nothing Gold Can Stay: These stories are wonderful. They give me an ache in the heart and I have to sit and look out of my window and think over and over again -- ALICE MUNRO
Perfect! So many brilliant stories, brilliantly written . . . all moving, witty -- CLAIRE FULLER
Praise for Ron Rash: Ron Rash is a writer of both the darkly beautiful and the sadly true . . . One of our very finest novelists -- RICHARD RUSSO
One of the great American authors at work today - New York Times
A riveting storyteller - Washington Post
Rash's evocative rendering of the blighted landscape and the tough characters who inhabit it recalls both John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy - New Yorker
Author
About Ron Rash
Ron Rash is an award-winning poet, short-story writer and novelist. His most recent story collection, Burning Bright, won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and his previous novel, Serena, was a New York Times Bestseller. Both are available from Canongate. He lives in the Appalachian Mountains, USA.
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