A Southern tragedy that's right on the mark

FICTION: The Cove, by Ron Rush, Canongate, 255pp. £11.99

AN EERIE SADNESS overshadows this powerful little study of life on the margins. A brother and sister continue to share the family smallholding, which remains haunted by the deaths of their parents. The father’s, caused by a “leaky heart”, was slow in coming but painful to watch, if sudden at the end. But their mother, hardworking and stoic, was most unfortunate: an unexpected infection from a simple splinter took her with vicious speed.

Both of her now adult children are marked in different ways. Hank Shelton has returned from the first World War with only one hand. Laurel, strange and childlike, has a large birthmark on her neck, which she bears with impressive acceptance. She is clever despite her lack of schooling, and is eager to learn. She grabs at facts and information.

Ron Rash, a US writer very much in the tradition of his near contemporary Daniel Woodrell (the author of Winter’s Bone, published in 2006), shapes his storytelling with a biblical intensity and a belief in speech as spoken. In Rash’s case, the dialogue he writes is inspired by the rhythms of Carolina.

Rash, the author of several novels, including, most recently, Serena (2008), earned an international readership with his brilliant collection Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. It is interesting that the title, inspired by William Blake, was also used by John Steinbeck; while Rash has been compared to Cormac McCarthy, his style is far closer to Steinbeck’s.

The cove is regarded as an evil place, and the local community is openly hostile to Hank and, particularly, his sister. Laurel appears to be regarded as a witch. She takes some pleasure in the abuse and, having had her birthmark jeered at since she was a child, is skilled at turning the insults back on her attackers. In her, Rash has created a singular character, wily yet also wistful: “Waiting. She had been waiting, waiting in the cabin . . . for her life to begin, her life.”

As the novel opens, Hank has made plans to marry, having proven to his wary prospective father-in-law that he can do as much with his one remaining hand as most men can with two. He is intent on improving the family farm for Laurel, as he and his new wife, when he marries, will be living elsewhere. Laurel doesn’t know this. Rash quickly establishes the contrasts: Hank is pragmatic, while Laurel is a dreamer, capable of making a romantic ritual out of washing clothes in the river.

Although there is much subtle lyricism in Rash’s prose, he tends towards understatement, and much of the most striking writing is in the dialogue, which conveys a strong sense of the period as well as of the South.

The cove has a murky life of its own; trees die there: “Immense watery caverns lay just beneath seemingly firm ground. They could give way and a man fall a hundred feet and then into water so utterly dark that the trout living in it were blind.”

Even more striking than the desolate location is the sense of this being a modern fairy tale: a much-maligned brother and sister battle everything life throws at them, and are impressively resilient, to a point. On the fringes of their lives lurks a bigoted evildoer who is about to destroy them. The stock elements of the traditional fairy tale are present, and Rash tells a wonderful story, rich in incident.

Into their cove enters a prince figure. This silent man, who plays the flute like a professional musician, is even injured in a way consistent with a fairy tale: he has been severely stung by wasps. Laurel rescues him.

He is her prize, and she begins to fantasise about him. He remains watchful, aware that his speaking voice will condemn him to imprisonment. It all unfolds calmly and fatalistically. Initially Hank sees the stranger, Walter, as a useful worker. Then he realises that Walter could give Laurel a life.

Meanwhile, Rash also follows the activities of Chauncey Feith, one of the most convincing minor villains in fiction, utterly devoid of caricature. Feith enjoys swaggering about in uniform as a recruitment officer. It feeds his ego and keeps him safely at home while others go and serve in France, to die or return maimed. He has his own way of demeaning the bravery of soldiers who have seen action. Feith is busy searching for Huns, and his quest includes baiting an elderly professor of German, who is American. In one of several extraordinary scenes, Feith marches into the local library intent on ridding it of any books written in German.

Laurel falls in love with Walter, who is still determined to make his way to New York. His plans fail. His next flight, in the company of Laurel, is far more tragic.

This is a novel stalked by fate, and it continually pits simplicity against cunning, without ever becoming sentimental. The language is ideally pitched to the narrative. Written in five sections that conform to the notion of a five-act drama, it is a nuanced American tragedy, vividly and traditionally executed with deceptive grace. Rash draws on the darkest elements of the fairy tale and the devices of light and shadow, romance and vengeance, while refraining from the stock sexualisation introduced by many contemporary writers.

The closing comments, uttered by a devastated old friend, achieve a Shakespearean resonance. This very fine, dignified, almost stately novel speaks from another time and does so with rare conviction.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent and author of Ordinary Dogs, published by Faber and Faber