Tuesday, February 18, 2025, 1:18PM |  11°
MENU
Advertisement
2
MORE

'The Risen' is a novel of love, sex, drugs and the South

'The Risen' is a novel of love, sex, drugs and the South

It’s sleepy time down South, and Eugene Watney and his older brother, Bill, are kicking back, enjoying the summer of 1969. Enter Ligeia, an errant vixen from Daytona come to Asheville, N.C., for schooling in propriety by her puritan relatives.

Ron Rash’s sultry “The Risen” is a bildungsroman, a thriller, a period piece. It’s well-constructed and absorbing, if not quite riveting. 

Ligeia is indeed a sight. Here, Gene recalls the boys approaching her at the local swimming hole:

Advertisement

"THE RISEN"
By Ron Rash
Ecco ($27.99).

“Her long red hair set off her aqua eyes and unblemished complexion. Close up, she looked younger, close to my age than Bill’s. Bright beads circled her neck. Love beads, I knew they were called. Affixed to the beads was a penny-size peace symbol. She raised a hand and tucked her dripping hair behind her ears, exposing a pale crescent of breast. I look away, feeling my face flush.” 

Great detail here, depicting a key figure but also conjuring the zeitgeist. Mr. Rash name checks the times effectively as Gene looks back, realizing the most important tune of the period was The Doors’ “The End.”

Ligeia is anything but a puritan. She stretches the boundaries wherever she goes, it seems. And she’s promiscuous, a quality the Watney boys value and exploit. Ligeia ends up schooling both boys in sex, but the conformist, more ambitious Bill opts out, scared to jeopardize his impending marriage. Eugene, the lonelier, less scheming boy, has a harder time letting go. Ligeia, after all, is his rite of passage.

Meanwhile, Grandfather Watney, a tyrant and a pillar of the community, is a doctor with a direct line to the pharmaceuticals that float Ligeia’s sensual boat. Raiding the medicine cabinet of their cruel elder becomes a contest for the brothers, eager to please their Florida siren with their chemical booty.

Advertisement

That’s part of the frosting of Mr. Rash’s lucid and stylish book, a smoothly written, occasionally torrid small-town noir that I finished feeling it may signify more than it delivers. I can’t say precisely what keeps it from lifting my boat, only that I wish it had somehow been thicker, especially given its material. The characterization seems thin, subordinate to the skill of the plot.

At the same time, Mr. Rash is great at atmosphere. He’s also effective in building the tension at the heart of “The Risen,” so named because Ligeia disappears mysteriously only to resurface 20 years later.

How Ligeia vanished is the mystery, and its unfolding is enthralling, complete with villains, including dogged police. Narrated by failed writer Eugene, an alcoholic with a painful past, it’s Mr. Rash’s meditation on sibling rivalry, the power of family and the pull of sensuality. It’s artfully written, if perhaps too sparely. It occasionally evokes William Faulkner (and Harper Lee; Mr. Rash’s character Nebo is analog to Boo Radley in Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”). But it also brings to mind “Ode to Billie Joe,” Bobbie Gentry’s Southern noir pop hit of 1967. Like “The Risen,” Gentry’s memorable single is about a girl lost to the waters.

The key storyline is the brothers’, their relationship is problematic early on.

“That Bill would become a surgeon had been decreed when he was in elementary school. ‘Look at how he trims the fat off that roast,’ Grandfather told our mother. ‘A natural-born surgeon and destined to be one of the best, just as I and his father would have been. And you, Eugene,’ my grandfather added, smiling as he turned to me, ‘you’re not even using the correct hand. I don’t know of a single left-handed surgeon. Southpaws see things differently, which isn’t what you want from someone wielding a scalpel.’” 

Mr. Rash has said this novel is an homage to Fyodor Dostoevsky, a connoisseur of guilt and responsibility. Like that Russian master, Mr. Rash keeps the mystery going, the questions unresolved.

Carlo Wolff is a freelance writer living in Cleveland.

First Published: September 18, 2016, 4:00 a.m.

RELATED
SHOW COMMENTS (0)  
Join the Conversation
Commenting policy | How to Report Abuse
If you would like your comment to be considered for a published letter to the editor, please send it to letters@post-gazette.com. Letters must be under 250 words and may be edited for length and clarity.
Partners
Advertisement
Head coach Mike Tomlin and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith watch a receivers and defensive backs drill at Steelers Minicamp at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex Thursday, June 13, 2024.
1
sports
Gerry Dulac: Next season’s major decisions loom this week for Mike Tomlin, Steelers staff
Sidequest on 44th in Lawrenceville on Dec. 27, 2024.
2
a&e
Canceled show finds ex-Misfits singer Michale Graves lashing out about being purged from Pittsburgh
The Allegheny County Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review approved a $25.9 million cut in One Oxford Centre's taxable value for 2025, bringing its new assessment to $54 million.
3
business
Taxable value of Downtown’s One Oxford Centre falls by $25.9M — its 3rd cut in 6 years
A small public audience listened as Pittsburgh Public Schools released final recommendations for its facilities utilization plan during the education committee meeting at the PPS Administration Building in Oakland on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024.
4
news
Pittsburgh Public Schools considering reinstating virtual testimony following months of pushback
A protester waves a sign opposing Trump administration policies during a protest at the intersection of Murray and Forbes Avenues in Squirrel Hill Monday, Feb. 17, 2025.
5
news
Presidents Day protest in Pittsburgh takes aim at Trump policies
Ron Rash.  (Ashley Jones)
Advertisement
LATEST ae
Advertisement
TOP
Email a Story