L’homme Blessé shows a form of comfort for those in particularly difficult times. Sad Man in the Sky offers a beautiful thought to counter a troubled past. But there are also stories that touch the heart without that external stress. A corporate exploiter brings on a fitting punishment. A thuggish person seeks to intimidate all around him. A wife-beater demands what he sees as his rights despite his crimes. A Trumpian sort tries to stiff his contractors. Many of these stories include bullying behavior. Ron Rash - image from the Charlotte Observer And, also, paradoxically time is a kind of geography as well: it is also a way of showing people in much different cultural mindsets, even within a specific culture, and thus another way to probe for the universal within a specific cultural landscape.There are nine stories and one novella in this collection, the book taking its title, In the Valley, from that longer piece. In a sense, I’m writing a current that runs through time in those stories. from the Transatlantica interviewThe time? Fluid, any time from the Civil War to the present. I believe the landscape people live in has to affect their psychology. One thing I want to do is for landscape and my characters to be inextricably bound together. The place is Appalachia, the people are its residents, and those who stop by to extract what it has to offer. After them raccoon and rabbit, opossum and chipmunk, squirrel and vole, deer mouse and shrew. Then beaver and weasel, deer and muskrat, groundhog and fox. As the trees began to fall, others followed: black bear and bobcat, otter and mink, some in pairs, some singly. The front paw lost years back to a trap’s steel teeth was warning enough. The mountain lion was the first to depart the valley. “When the world and my will are one,” Serena answered. Pemberton?” she asked, as others jostled around them. “When will you have achieved all your ambitions, Mrs.

In the valley by ron rash