NEA Big Read: Heart of Virginia: About the Book

Overview of the Book

“The characters in Burning Bright are flawed … but they’re not monsters, even when their actions lack compassion or are downright criminal. The worst you can say about them is ‘They’re trying.’” – Pop Matters

Though the 12 stories in Burning Bright cover a wide swath of time from the Civil War to the present day, collectively they tell a story about Appalachia. And though they take us along the winding roads to the old homesteads and subdivisions of the American South, where “the region is a character in and of itself” and “myths and legends and history permeate every story” (BookPage), they also pulse with universal human emotions.

The collection lets us glimpse the lives of farmers and office workers, soldiers and war widows, pawnbrokers and old bar musicians, all struggling to exist in the world. “Rash’s characters…act as they believe they must to save what is dear to them—family members, a marriage, a heritage, a nation, and even a neighbor’s child” (Booklist). They “rely on gritty fortitude, shadowed compassion, and a bone deep alliance to the land and the people they came from to carry on, day to day” (Huffington Post).

National Endowment of the Arts. “Burning Bright.” Burning Bright, NEA Big Read, 6 June 2018, www.arts.gov/national-initiatives/nea-big-read/burning-bright. Accessed 8 Mar. 2019.

Reader Resources PDF provided by the NEA Big Read & Arts Midwest.

Reviews for Burning Bright

With a mastery of dialogue, Rash has written a tribute and a pre-emptive eulogy for the hardworking, straight-talking farmers of the Appalachian Mountains. --Publishers Weekly.

"The stories in Rash's ( Serena ) aptly titled new collection burn themselves on the memory in much the same way as the photographs Walker Evans took of Southern sharecroppers in the 1930s that were later collected in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men . Rash's spare narratives are set primarily in today's Appalachia, with families decimated by poverty, drugs, and every other discernible kind of heartache. A pawnshop owner knows all the local addicts by virtue of the junk they bring in for money and becomes an unlikely hero when one of these deals uncovers a family member's disgrace. A husband who no longer knows how to talk to his wife elicits our sympathy even after he communicates his message by slashing her tires. A neglected boy with meth-addict parents finds treasure in a plane wreck he happens upon when his wanderings lead him into Smoky Mountains National Park. VERDICT Rash, who has authored not only fiction but also three volumes of poetry, is a master craftsman who pares down language to its essential elements in these starkly beautiful stories." (Russell, 2009)

"Born and raised in the Carolinas, Rash— also a poet and novelist (Serena, 2008)—has become known as a writer of Appalachia. Although these 12 stories are set in that region, in times ranging from the Civil War to today, they display a universality that goes beyond time or place. Rash’s characters, often struggling to make their way in the world, act as they believe they must to save what is dear to them—family members, a marriage, a heritage, a nation, and even a neighbor’s child. In the title story, a woman widowed and remarried to a younger handyman drifter lies to protect her husband, despite what she knows in her heart. In this, as in other stories, Rash leaves the reader with thoughts of the nearinevitable aftermath and its consequences. There is a purity and precision in Rash’s prose, reminiscent of his poetry, that makes these stories as deceptively easy to read as they are hard to forget. This is memorable, unflinching short fiction by a master of the form." (Leber, 2009)