This might not be a long book, but man does it pack a punch! “In a small Southern town during the 1950s, elopement and divorce were serious moral transgressions deserving of punishment.” In the late 1960s, Eugene and his older brother Bill lived under the thumb of their ambitious and strict grandfather. As the town doctor, their grandfather controlled his patients as much as he did his grandsons, by threatening to tell their secrets or refusing to treat them if they did not follow his […]
That Time Lady Macbeth Went Hunting
Serena is described on the cover as a “retelling of Macbeth in Appalachia” and that is the most accurate five-word description that can be given to this book, except in this version, Lady Macbeth quickly outdistances her husband. George Pemberton is the owner of a timber business in 1929, and he and his new wife Serena seek to dominate and to expand this business by any means, often ruthless, necessary. When Serena discovers she cannot bear children, she turns this same ruthlessness towards Pemberton’s illegitimate […]
Serena by Ron Rash
“Others can make us vulnerable and the sooner such vulnerabilities are dealt with the better” It’s been a week since I finished Serena, and I’m still not sure how to talk about it. The basics: it’s set in the 192os; Serena and George Pemberton, recently wed, have moved to a logging camp in North Carolina to make their fortune. Right from the start, the Pembertons encounter trouble when a woman named Rachel and her father confront George at the train station: George got Rachel pregnant the last […]
A Formidable But Evil Woman – And Cannonball
I haven’t seen Winter’s Bone yet, but while reading this, I kept wondering how audiences were going to react to Jennifer Lawrence, America’s sweetheart, as a ruthless bitch. Set in a logging camp in 1929 North Carolina, Serena is a hard woman with no time for sentimentality, and there are definitely things about her to admire. She holds her own among the men,and is often the smartest person in the room. She knows more about logging than most if not all of the men, and she and […]