Serena: A Novel

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains—but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.

Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.

“Rash is a storyteller of the highest rank and SERENA confirms this from the opening sentence to the final page. An epic achievement.” - Jeffrey Lent, bestselling author of IN THE FALL

“Ron Rash’s new novel Serena catapults him to the front ranks of the best American novelists. This novel will make a wonderful movie, and the brave actress who plays Serena is a shoe-in for an Academy Award nomination.” - Pat Conroy

“An Appalachian retelling of Macbeth, a thriller, a word-perfect evocation of an era and a people, a grim chapter in the history of conservation: if Serena doesn’t finally win Ron Rash the overdue attention of the national literary (and cinematic) establishments, I can’t imagine what they’re holding out for.” - Arthur Phillips, author of Prague

“Alluring, sometimes erotic, often frightening.” - Washington Post Book World

“In an age when literary fiction is so intent on subtlety that it often winds up virtually inert, a novel with this much uncomplicated gusto and narrative drive is a rare thing; in the case of Serena, it’s also a welcome one.” - Salon.com

“In SERENA, author Ron Rash has created a villainess like no other—as cool as she is ruthless. . . . She is a remarkable creation.” - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Beautifully written, utterly unforgettable. To my mind, this novel, as powerful and inexorable as a thunderstorm, is as good a piece of fiction as was published last year and a new classic in the category of love gone terribly wrong.” - Anna Quindlen

“Ron Rash’s new novel Serena catapults him to the front ranks of the best American novelists. This novel will make a wonderful movie, and the brave actress who plays Serena is a shoe-in for an Academy Award nomination.” - Pat Conroy

“With bone-chilling aplomb, linguistic grace and the piercing fatalism of an Appalachian ballad, Mr. Rash lets the Pembertons’ new union generate ripple after ripple of astonishment.” - Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Ron Rash’s SERENA will stand as one of the major American novels of this century. It is a flat-out masterpiece-mythic, terrifying, and beautiful.” - Lee Smith

“A gorgeous, brutal writer.” - Richard Price, bestselling author of LUSH LIFE

“If you haven’t heard of the Southern writer Ron Rash, it is time you should. Rash has been writing poems, stories and novels for years, but with the release of Serena, a dark fable that mixes Southern Gothic motifs with Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” he may reach the mainstream audience he long deserves…Rash writes brisk and beautiful prose. Like early Cormac McCarthy, he creates deliciously grotesque characters. His descriptions of the punishing work camp recall William Faulkner at his most rhetorical. And his similes astound: the rain-soaked laborers “resembled half-formed Adams dredged from the mud, not yet molded to human”; the eagle is “black-hooded like an executioner”; a woman’s dead eyes are like “mist filling two inward-probing cavities.” Serena is that publishing rarity: It will please readers who cherish both plot and prose.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

“[Rash] has outdone himself. The story of this brilliant, ambitious, seductive woman is a searing tragedy of Shakespearean proportions—or, in simpler terms, a damn good book that will keep you awake far too late and, well after you’ve finished it, haunt your dreams.” - Julia Glass, National Book Award winning author of THREE JUNES

“Universal in scope, frightening in its brutality, Serena is an unflinching vision of blighted souls played out against the backdrop of a nearly-lost Appalachia.” - David Wroblewski, author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

“Masterfully written...The book is consistently heartbreaking in its portrayal of what humans are capable of…sprawling [and] engrossing.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“From that arresting opening . . . the violence escalates along with the tension in this absorbing story about rapacious greed in Depression-era Appalachia. . . . Though Rash paints Serena, an ice queen in jodhpurs, as nearly mythical, his loggers are human, laboring for little pay, often at the cost of life or limb. . . . Thrilling stuff.” - People

“Beautifully written…” - Seattle Times

“Love gone seriously wrong is the central theme of Serena. . . . This logging soap opera has it all: sex, lies, deceit, betrayal, murder. The rugged Carolina terrain plays a key supporting role. The climatic ending embodies another saw: Revenge is a dish best served cold.” - USA Today

“From the moment she steps off the train, Serena Pemberton commands center stage in Ron Rash’s rough-hewn tale of unchecked ambition. Universal in scope, frightening in its brutality, Serena is an unflinching vision of blighted souls played out against the backdrop of a nearly-lost Appalachia.” - David Wroblewski, New York Times bestselling author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

“The opening is unforgettable…the last hundred pages are thrilling…should be a breakthrough for this masterful storyteller.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This is a must-read novel.” - About.com (Contemporary Literature)

“A powerful tale, well told, SERENA is enriched by Rash’s artful use of language. With just the right turn of phrase, dead-on details and subtle use of symbol, he delivers a story that will remain with readers long after the final page.” - Charlotte Observer

“From that arresting opening…the violence escalates along with the tension in this absorbing story about rapacious greed in Depression-era Appalachia…Thrilling stuff.” - People

“A harrowing tour de force that might be the most timely and dangerous novel released this fall. . . . Author of several acclaimed collections of poetry and fiction, Rash has gone beyond any Southern gothic tale to weave a complex and riveting portrait in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his classic, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. As unforgettable as a haunting mountain ballad, Serena unfolds like a brilliantly conceived cautionary tale and mediation on the dark corners of unbridled lust to profit at any cost.” - Huffington Post

“A harrowing tour de force that might be the most timely and dangerous novel released this fall... Rash has gone beyond any Southern gothic tale to weave a complex and riveting portrait in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez...brilliantly conceived.” - Huffington Post

“Too hypnotic to break away from...And the final chapter is as flawless and captivating as anything I’ve read this year, a perfectly creepy shock that will leave you hearing nothing but the wind between the stumps.” - Washington Post Book World

“[A] major Southern writer . . . [who] reminds us of the sort of compelling literature a brave artist can fashion from the shards of such experience” - Los Angeles Times

“Rash’s clear, concise prose and regional voice add an authentic veneer to [the] rich tableau of Southern life.” - Entertainment Weekly