Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

One Foot in Eden

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 · rating details · 1,328 ratings · 184 reviews

Will Alexander is the sheriff in a small town in southern Appalachia, and he knows that the local thug Holland Winchester has been murdered. The only thing is the sheriff can find neither the body nor someone to attest to the killing. Simply, almost elementally told through the voices of the sheriff, a local farmer, his beautiful wife, their son, and the sheriff's deputy,

...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published January 3rd 2004 by Picador (first published 2002)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Books Set in Appalachia

40th out of 219 books — 377 voters

Moonlight on the Nantahala by Micheal Rivers

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

Appalachian Fiction

13th out of 97 books — 113 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,610)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Feb 14, 2009 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: southern-gothic-westerns

For the last 50 pages alone, this book should probably get 5 stars. The middle narrative, still strong, just didn't resonate as much as the rest of the novel.
Great book. Like the jacket will tell you, equal parts vintage crime novel with southern gothic fiction thrown in for good measure. I wanted to think Ron Rash as Cormac McCarthy-lite, but that would be inaccurate. His writing is more pensive, plaintive. His writing is thoughtful, clear as can be, like a natural oral story teller.

Recommended...more

like 6 likes · see review

Sep 15, 2007 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most well-crafted books I've read in ages. Gripping plot, well-drawn characters, lyrical prose. When a poet starts writing fiction, you just have to stand back and watch.

like 10 likes · see review

Dec 01, 2009 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club, literary

I read this book in one sitting, over 5 hours, cover to cover. It was so amazing. I'm now a full-on Ron Rash fan. His language, his sense of place, his ability to paint a complete picture in relatively few words of a town, its people, its time, are absolutely wonderful. I had no idea what I was missing. A beautiful Southern writer with a pared down, clear voice.

The book alternates from 5 points of view around a murder in a small South Carolina town in the 50s: the sheriff, the wife of a happily...more

like 7 likes · see review

Feb 23, 2009 Caroline Picard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Last Christmas I went down south, for the first time to South Carolina. There I stayed with a wonderful couple of artists who have, as artist so often do, carved out a remarkable life in the Greenville. Greenville is a small city with a burgeoning and quaint downtown, what was once dilapidated and run down with the sleepy charm of Southern history. Places like these benefit from the cyclical spread of rejuvenation-gentrification, if only because the historical buildings are preserved against any...more Last Christmas I went down south, for the first time to South Carolina. There I stayed with a wonderful couple of artists who have, as artist so often do, carved out a remarkable life in the Greenville. Greenville is a small city with a burgeoning and quaint downtown, what was once dilapidated and run down with the sleepy charm of Southern history. Places like these benefit from the cyclical spread of rejuvenation-gentrification, if only because the historical buildings are preserved against any harder times to come.

Nevertheless, we got to talking a rambled through the subject of Faulkner, art communities, writers and families and the way so many small towns run rich with familial legacy--legacies that are told and retold so often as to grow into myth. On that subject the Campbells lent me this book. They also taught me about rum cake.

"One Foot in Eden," a debut novel (published in 2002) by Carolina native Ron Rash explores these legacies. Divided into five parts with varying perspectives, the story opens in the drought "dog days" of summer, when, a war veteran has gone missing. High Sheriff Alexander, descended from the Alexander clan, who for centuries owned and worked a plot of land in Jocassee visits an old friend and primary suspect, Billy Holcombe. Holcombe, for his part, is the first of his family line of sharecroppers to ever own any land. If it weren't for the later shifts in perspective, the book could stand easily as a kind of murder mystery. Indeed, that's what I thought I was in for after reading the opening lines, "There had been trouble in the upper part of the country at a honky-tonk called The Borderlins, and Bobby had come by the house because he didn't want to go alone. I couldn't blame him. One badge, especially a deputy's badge, might not be enough."

And yet, Rash pushes the plot beyond any specific genra; he's comfortable to leave the sheriff with his troubles (a dysfunctional marriage, regret at having left the life of farming behind and the resulting estrangement of his immediate family), and delves farther into the motives and mishaps of love, desire and loss. Thus, the reader leaps from the mind and dialect of Sheriff Alexander, to that of AmyHolcombe, then suspect Billy Holcombe, to their son, Isaac Holcombe and at last the naive Deputy Bobby. In each point of view, the women occupy the most prominant place, revealing a depth and mystery that their male protagonists must support; even when those same women make compromising choices. There is witch who lives on the mountain, just as their is an unhappy wife in town, a mother prone to gossip and linking all of these an overarching address of male impotence--even in the face of death.

In order to negotiate the transforming effects of history, Rash weaves the constant and impersonal threat of the Carolina Power Company which plans to flood the valley for a dam. It seems fitting then that, perhaps the least developed character, Deputy Bobby, offers the most pristine observations, as he crosses the lake in a motor boat, in the final passages of the book, and looking down into the water sees the flooded houses, far below in the new lake bed. "I was getting near shore now so I eased the throttle. I looked at the bank and realized I was eyeballing the top ofLicklog Mountain. Down in the water I saw a road and I knew there was but one road it couldbe . Everything was so clear it was like looking through a window. I cut the engine and let the boat drift above the old river bed, the boat's shadow dragging across the lake bottom like a net.

"This is the way God sees the world, I thought. Soon I saw the truck, still bogged down in the mud the way it had been six months ago, then a mailbox and finally the house and barn and shed me and the sheriff had searched so long ago."

Using devices like time, legacy, folk lore, character, landscape and water, Rash provides a multifaceted narrative in which there is nodiscernable right or wrong. A tale in which the Deputy sees the world at eye-level first and later from above.(less)

like 3 likes · see review

Feb 23, 2013 Katia rated it 3 of 5 stars

J'ai beaucoup aimé la forme de ce roman. Il s'agit d'une histoire simple. Un couple n'arrive pas à faire d'enfant car le mari est stérile donc sa femme séduit leur voisin, un beau mâle brun et en sueur, et après quelques galipettes, tombe enceinte. Mais le voisin torride est lourdeau et, comprenant tout, souhaite devenir le père et vivre avec Amy. Comme on est dans les Etats-Unis de 1950 et que le fusil se dégaine vite, Holland (le voisin) est tué. Cette histoire simple donc, est racontée par le...more

like · see review

Feb 09, 2013 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was so upset with one of the well-drawn characters that I almost stopped reading it. How could she take it upon herself to elicit sex from a neighbor without telling her husband first, even if her motives were honorable! It pushed some of my buttons: adultery, open communication, respect. OK, her marriage was falling apart and a child she thought might save it. OK, a wise woman down the valley suggested it after other interventions failed. OK, she was only 19 and doing the best she knew how. O...more

like 1 like · see review

Jan 23, 2013 Barksdale Penick rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book. It is highly structured, but that doesn't in any way impinge on the narrative flow. The tale is in part a crime novel, although not a whodunit. And in part a memoir of a disappeared part of America , although perhaps the Appalachian setting is a tiny bit overdone, such as the old lady in the woods who is rumored to be a witch and can cure ailments with roots and berries and has second sight, or the tobacco farmers hanging until the valley is flooded by a new dam. But each of t...more

like 2 likes · see review

Dec 31, 2011 Shelley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

This is the best novel I read in 2011, and maybe even in 2010. I waded through a lot of pyrite to get to this gem, and it was well worth it. The Los Angeles Times blurb on my copy's front cover presents a perfect glimpse of this novel: "Equal parts vintage crime novel and Southern Gothic, full of aching ambivalence and hard compromises, and rounded off by bad faith and bad choices, One Foot in Eden is a veritable garden of earthly disquiet." Well said!

From the suspenseful unfolding of the plot,...more

like 2 likes · see review

Sep 02, 2011 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: appalachian-literature

I picked up this book because I like Appalachian literature. Ron Rash, the author, teaches Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University which is not far from my hometown of Asheville, NC. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to read a novel written by a "local boy."

The plot is woven around the murder of a tough-talking, fighting, veteran of the Korean war. The story is told from the perspective of five individuals who had reason to come in contact with the man. The narrative is brilliantly e...more

like 1 like · see review

Mar 08, 2011 Marianne rated it 5 of 5 stars

One Foot in Eden is Ron Rash’s first novel. The tale is told in five voices; the setting is the Jocassee Valley in the Appalachian Mountains of South Carolina in the 1950s. It starts out as a murder mystery, but soon becomes much more. Characters that start out as simple farmers and law enforcement officers develop an unexpected depth. Underneath the main story is the current of people’s lives and the threat of the dam that will flood the valley.
Sherriff Will Alexander believes that local thug a...more

like · see review

Mar 17, 2011 Jodi rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

The was a well-written book and even though it was about a murder case, I enjoyed reading about it from different points of view. First, we meet the sheriff who is trying to solve the murder of Holland, the town trouble-maker. He has suspicions but cannot find proof. Next, we meet the wife who cares for her husband but he cannot give her the one thing she wants most............a baby. The book takes place in the 1950s so the options available for infertility weren't available and the couple is a...more

like 1 like · see review

Apr 19, 2013 Ipsith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Is it possible to get away with murder? Ron Rash's debut novel, One Foot in Eden, asks this question in a haunting literary mystery set deep in the Appalachian Mountains. When returned war-hero and local rabble-rouser Holland Winchester shows up missing, signs of foul play point to his quiet neighbor. Yet the sheriff can uncover neither the body nor the facts needed to seal the case.

One Foot in Eden surpasses the traditional "whodunit" construction and delves into the much richer, "Why?" Layer b...more

like 2 likes · see review

Jul 14, 2012 jo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: us-regional

you know, i'm on a tear. after reading A Land More Kind Than Home: A Novel i decided i'd spend the rest of my life reading books set in appalachia. i've taken many life decisions before and i haven't kept a single one, so draw your conclusion. still, this is heady stuff. both the Wiley Cash book and this, ron rash's first novel, have a way with language that is simply intoxicating. partly it's the dialect. there are sentences in this books, complete paragraphs really, that are pure gold. mostly...more you know, i'm on a tear. after reading A Land More Kind Than Home: A Novel i decided i'd spend the rest of my life reading books set in appalachia. i've taken many life decisions before and i haven't kept a single one, so draw your conclusion. still, this is heady stuff. both the Wiley Cash book and this, ron rash's first novel, have a way with language that is simply intoxicating. partly it's the dialect. there are sentences in this books, complete paragraphs really, that are pure gold. mostly when billy holcombe speaks. there is a sense of a simple morality that is half superstition half plain good old righteousness. strangely enough, religions seems to play a much lesser role than those two, but for the good characters, the wise ones, the loving ones, superstition enhances rather than diminishes the drive to be good, be honest and live with integrity. and the language is part and parcel of all this. some things you've got to say with the language of your ancestors, a language that comes from the land and is rooted in pain, the weather, back-breaking work, the cycles of luck and misfortune, acceptance, poverty.

the background of all this is both a luscious, lovely and sometimes forbidding land, and the construction of a dam that will drown it all into a lake. the thought of rich, beautiful land being drowned at the bottom of a man-made lake has always brought tears to my eyes. rosh rash depicts it as a tragedy the import of which need not be discussed, because we can see it in the grief of the people who live on the land, which reflects it.

so, on the one hand we have more misfortune piled on folks who are intimately familiar with misfortune and know how to face up to it or not, depending on what's wise or expedient. on the other, we have the juggernaut of civilization, whose respect for the fragility and wealth of human experience runs in the negative numbers. grief shows in the guise of lost love, lost chances, broken family ties, death, and ruined crops. destruction shows in the guise of Carolina Power. people can survive grief that would fell a horse but they can't survive a government contract.

this is not a cheerful book but it's a beautiful, beautiful book. at the end, as the lake starts creeping up on the only place they've ever known, light and life go out of the eyes of this book's characters. might as well be dead.

(less)

like 10 likes · see review

Nov 19, 2011 Johnny rated it 5 of 5 stars

While this wonderful novel may be considered "literary", that is merely a marketing term. This is a solid, well-written crime novel. I don't know why it is that as soon as someone writes a genre book well, it is rarely regarded as genre anymore. As if a qualification of genre work is that it is poorly written. Drives me nuts.

Anyway, this is a hell of a book. If you're a fan of Daniel Woodrell, you'll love it. Rural and poetic with interesting moral questions that are left wide open (as it should...more

like · see review

Sep 10, 2012 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oh my goodness! I could NOT put this book down. Well, I had to go to sleep, but picked it right up this morning. I have always been fascinated by books set in the South and particularly Appalachia. This one is set in the Carolina mountains in the early 1950's. The Carolina Power company is about to flood the farmland and small town making the homes there a lake. The people living there are faced with what will come soon, but in the meantime, their lives continue to tangle.

I love the way the aut...more

like 2 likes · see review

Jul 05, 2009 Moira Crone rated it 4 of 5 stars

I learned from this book that one way to write a tragedy is to have every person in the story tell his part, each part is separate, each part is individual. Progressively the story gets told, unravelled. And that you need an ongoing and complex mystery to keep up suspense when writing a book that keeps changing voices. I know of another work with this device, and even more characters, and that is Ernest Gaine's Gathering of Old Men: this one used the convention of all testimony on the same day.E...more

like · see review

Sep 16, 2007 Heather Modzelewski rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Southern Culturists

Ron Rash is a poet. His fiction is a tapestry of poems, woven together to tell the thread of a story. With "One Foot in Eden," he captures a place that no longer exists and re-creates it, one personality, one accent, one description at a time - and weaves a murder mystery in to keep you on your toes.

like 2 likes · see review

May 23, 2009 Nina rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book written by a Southerner, whom I discovered in the magazine Oxford American. He started off his career as a poet, I believe, and this was his first novel. What a great, gentle book- actually a mystery, told from the sequential voices of several characters, with the mystery eventually solved. Despite the crime, there is this mixture of tenderness and pain in the characters, which I associate, for better or for worse, with Southern country living and saw a good bit of growing up....more

like 1 like · see review

Oct 26, 2008 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

An enchanting novel from Ron Rash about the upstate area of South Carolina just before communities were flooded to create the lakes (Jocassee particularly). Read this book, support this writer. I believe he will soon be recognized as one of the great American writers of our time.

like · see review

Aug 18, 2012 Crystal rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: regional-lit

Many Ron Rash readers rave about his work. I tried a few years back to read some of his short stories and I guess I just started reading the wrong one for me. I didn't understand the hype. But now, I do. Several of my friends from the Blue Ridge Writing Project recommended this and I'm very glad to join them in their admiration of the authorship of Ron Rash. While I don't find in his writing what some folks describe as exquisite prose, I do find strong, simplex stories with very complex underton...more

like 1 like · see review

May 15, 2012 Jerianne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not something I would normally pick up and read for fun, since it is far out of my usual genres, but One Foot in Eden was very good. I suppose it helped to motivate me to read this that I have met Ron Rash and this was the book he signed for me. I read this and kept in the back of my mind to pay attention to his style and how he accomplished things, since Ron Rash was on of the authors we focused on in my last creative writing class. I really liked how he told parts of the same story from the po...more

like · see review

Apr 14, 2011 Sandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-2011, library-books

From the back cover: Will Alexander is the sheriff in a small town in Southern Appalachia, and he knows that the local thug Holland Winchester has been murdered. The only thing is the sheriff can find neither the body nor someone to attest to the killing. Simply, almost elementally told through the voice of the sheriff, a local farmer, his beautiful wife, their son, and the sheriff's deputy. One Foot in Eden signals the bellwether arrival of one of the most mature and distinctive voices in south...more

like · see review

Mar 04, 2013 Bank rated it 4 of 5 stars

Beautifully written , pretty dark , and very authentic tale of life in the Jocassee Valley of SC/ NC wit the story ending upon the flooding of the Bally to create Lake Jocassee . I grew up about 40 miles from here down in the Piedmont but worlds away from the hollows of the mountain folk . A hand to mouth hardscrabble way of life .
The story has an Old Testament feel to it and indeed the reader will note more than one parallel and lesson. A powerful book , and again beautifully crafted .
As I kep...more

like · see review

Dec 14, 2011 K.K. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-book-log

I flew through this book, which is not typically of me. I am not a fast reader; however, this book lives up to the review on its cover that says "Equal parts vintage crime novel and Southern Gothic..." It was an engrossing read.

So, I feel that I must apologize for what I fear is a broken record of sorts in my reviews, but I was not satisfied with the ending. It's not that the ending was unearned or predictable, but there is a sense that he took the easy and foreseeable ending. Once it started ha...more

like · see review

Jul 25, 2010 Keirstan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, mystery, american, fiction

Ron Rash's Southern Gothic crime novel ONE FOOT IN EDEN is a truly engaging read. The gist of the story is this: a young couple, Billy and Amy Holcombe, discover that due to Billy's childhood affliction of polio he cannot provide Amy with a child. Amy seeks out the advice of the town witch doctor, Widow Glendower, and is lead to the conclusion that she must copulate with another man, neighbor Holland Winchester, to begin her family with Billy. Amy does this but Holland's inability to leave the a...more Ron Rash's Southern Gothic crime novel ONE FOOT IN EDEN is a truly engaging read. The gist of the story is this: a young couple, Billy and Amy Holcombe, discover that due to Billy's childhood affliction of polio he cannot provide Amy with a child. Amy seeks out the advice of the town witch doctor, Widow Glendower, and is lead to the conclusion that she must copulate with another man, neighbor Holland Winchester, to begin her family with Billy. Amy does this but Holland's inability to leave the affair at that result in his murder by the hand of Billy. The result is ONE FOOT IN EDEN, a novel of the crime and its effects told through the voices of the county sheriff, Amy, Billy, Isaac, the product of the affair, and the sheriff's deputy.

The primary theme of the novel is the idea that Jocassee, the narrators' town, is a place for the lost. Nestled in a valley within Appalachia, Jocassee is slowly overrun by Carolina Power and is destined to be covered by a lake that will force an exodus. The deep connection the characters harbor with the land dooms them from the beginning. Looming throughout the book is the awareness that the land, representing both the good and bad within each character, will eventually drown in the approaching lake. I believe that Rash's view of this is ultimately hopeful; when Isaac is able to escape he brings with him both the knowledge of his true father as well as the love and wisdom his acting parents.

One character that certainly cannot be ignored is the Widow Glendower, a prototypical Southern Gothic witch doctor that turns the plot wheels of the story. It is the Widow Glendower that leads Amy to her decision to sleep with Holland; it is the Widow Glendower who condones the murder of Holland by Billy; and it is the Widow Glendower that revives Billy from a sickness that could have eliminated him from his sons's tragedy early on. The ultimate image of her bones, sinking to the bottom of the heart of the lake, the Holcombe and Winchester properties, suggests that evil has finally been left to rest.

The story of ONE FOOT IN EDEN is enjoyable to the last page. Rash's characters are complete and the reader cannot help but become invested in their fates. I am certainly glad I found a way to get my hands on this book.(less)

like · see review

Jun 01, 2012 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of atmospheric southern literature

First book I've read by this author but will read more-this is his first novel but there have been several since and he has a new one out right now (2012) which is what led me to his first novels.
This one takes place in 1950's small town N. Carolina and concerns a murder, an old woman who some think is a witch, a childless couple and a rather rash way to get pregnant in the days before all the modern info we have now, marriage, death, love, farm life, power company taking over farmland, etc. It...more

like · see review

Mar 26, 2008 Anne Fitten Glenn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably my favorite book about Appalachia. A great story beautifully told. Read it.

like · see review

Sep 14, 2011 Trey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Awesome little novel. Impressive first book by Ron Rash who captures the folklife, dialect, beliefs and customs of Southern Appalachia. All this wrapped around a crime that refuses to be solved. There're plenty of characters with as many ghosts and regrets as questions about the past as well as the future. Rash makes a statement about simple folk and their conflicts with each other and the dawning of technological advances that came about between the 1950's and 1970's for the people of the mount...more

like · see review

Jul 12, 2011 Gretchen Adkins rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book was amazing. It isn't really a murder mystery or a southern tragedy, but its both. The book made me want to plant a garden, milk a cow, and feed chickens. It made me want to live the 1950's country life. Isaac is a great example of a southern child born to the lower class who is riddled with problems that run much deeper than money.

I recommend this book to anyone who is southern and proud of it or anyone interested in North Carolina history and geography. There is plenty of love and s...more

like · see review

Sep 03, 2012 Andrew Polley rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is not a difficult book to read, nor understand. There are times, I think, when we tend to overvalue books based on the number of pages it has, the reputation of the author, or (God forbid) a sticker on the front cover. This book would fail all of those tests. But if the purpose of art is to bring forth an emotional response in the observer, then this book is art. Quite simply, this is one of the best books I have ever read that no one ever talks about. Seriously. Read it and tell me you're...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 86 87 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (5)

More editions...

Genres

Mystery

16 users

American > Southern

9 users

Literary Fiction

8 users

Historical Fiction

8 users

Book Club

8 users

Literature > American

4 users

Gothic > Southern Gothic

3 users

Drama

3 users

Mystery > Crime

3 users

Literature

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Ron Rash

Ron Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist and New York Times bestselling novel, Serena, in addition to three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; three collections of poems; and four collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other St...more

More about Ron Rash...

Books by Ron Rash

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About One Foot in Eden

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from One Foot in Eden

“But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.” — 10 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: One Foot in Eden
avg rating	preview: One Foot in Eden Goodreads rating: 4.09 (1328 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/545981.One_Foot_in_Eden?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316136753l/545981.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/545981.One_Foot_in_Eden?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash[/url]

One Foot in Eden

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website