A review by briandice
Burning Bright by Ron Rash

5.0

Ron Rash takes poverty, holds it before the Reader in clarion brilliance, and states "Watch what I can do with this shit."

Sure, Christ opines You'll always have the poor among you but what difference does it make unless we can be among them? Why meth? Why live in a trailer with windows painted black, scratching out a meaningless existence playing "Freebird" once an hour to equally poor and drunk rednecks? What does it mean to be middle-aged and very unclear about where the next meal is coming from? Forget that paycheck-to-paycheck shit, this is All-Star Poor.

I don't know Rash's back story, but I wouldn't be surprised if he (or a near relative) had to steal eggs from a hen in the dead of night to survive; seriously considered meth as a way to cope with the world; witnessed the waning of a dying love. It doesn't take a good writer to shock a reader - it takes someone of Rash's talents to pin us and make us remember that the human condition comes with a fatal prognosis - and the sooner we realize this the quicker we can get on living. I'm making up a memory I'll soon enough need, the narrator of the story "Falling Star" tells us. That's wisdom beyond the room temperature IQ of Rash's protagonist, it is sage advice to the living.