Nothing Gold Can Stay(2013) by Ron Rash

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Nothing Gold Can Stay (2013)

by Ron Rash

Boiling Springs, North Carolina

North Carolina: 1/20

   North Carolina, here we go.  I drove through North Carolina once after college driving between Washington DC and San Francisco, but I didn't stop and I've never been back.  These days what I know about North Carolina is that it's a reddish-purple state with some strong universities, a big African-American population and a bunch of southern white people.   I'm looking forward to actually learning something about North Carolina via the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project and Nothing Gold Can Stay, a book of short-stories by Ron Rash, is a good start.

    Boiling Springs is mapped on the border of North and South Carolina, about half way between Charlotte and Asheville.  It's a whole lot of nothing according to the characters, who see a two-hour drive to an Indian Casino as a big trip.  One reoccurring motif is characters filling out financial aid forms for college- there are fourteen stories in this collection and financial aid forms are mentioned in four or five of them.   There's also meth addiction, illegal bear hunting and run-down shacks a plenty.  Despite the repetition of the financial aid motif and the author's steady disregard for providing endings to the stories, I enjoyed Nothing Gold Can Stay and Rash is the first author in weeks where I've considered looking further into his bibliography.