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Serena

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 4,192 ratings · 907 reviews

Please don't delete. This is an alternate cover for 9780061470844.

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

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Paperback, 371 pages

Published by ecco (first published August 1st 2008)

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May 08, 2013 Anthony Vacca rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While doing a book signing for his fourth novel Serena, a man came up and asked Ron Rash for a personalized message. Like any humble writer, Rash was eager to please. The man asked for the message to read as follows: “To [name unspecified], this book is about the only woman meaner than you.” Ron Rash told the guy, “I’m not signing that.”

And for good reason too. Rash’s titular character Serena, is like a scene-eating Valkyrie walking right off the stage of some bloody Elizabethan tragedy, and int...more

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Feb 01, 2012 karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: littry-fiction, pretty-girls-make-graves, favorites

THIS IS NOT A FLOAT, KOWALSKI! THIS IS AN ALL-NEW 2012 REVIEW!!

i am alarmed that i only wrote a four-line review of this amazing book. now that i am starting to read the cove, i figure now is as good a time as any to remind this website just how good ron rash is, and how so far, serena is the best of them. (i am only on page 15 of the cove, so this could change)

whenever i try to hand-sell this at work, i will usually just say: "it is like macbeth in a logging community. with a greek chorus." whi...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Jeanette rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-work-for-me, all-fiction

I read the first 90 pages of this book and couldn't continue. The writing is excellent, quite impressive, really. But when each chapter brought a new form of cruelty to animals, I had to stop.
Bashing in a raccoon's skull with an axe...Starving a captive eagle to bend it to your will...Baiting a field with corn and apples so you can shoot twelve deer and a bear for sport, then just leave them all piled in the middle of the field to rot after you've killed them...Are you sickened yet? I found mys...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Strong, resourceful young women are enjoying the spotlight these days in popular fiction. There are enough of them that Jennifer Lawrence can’t possibly play them all in movie versions. Serena qualifies for the club with her street smarts (or its Appalachian equivalent), her initiative, and her poise in the face of danger. Too bad she’s also a bloodthirsty, bad-to-the-bone sociopath.

She and her husband George Pemberton are Depression-era timber barons in North Carolina. We’re introduced to them...more Strong, resourceful young women are enjoying the spotlight these days in popular fiction. There are enough of them that Jennifer Lawrence can’t possibly play them all in movie versions. Serena qualifies for the club with her street smarts (or its Appalachian equivalent), her initiative, and her poise in the face of danger. Too bad she’s also a bloodthirsty, bad-to-the-bone sociopath.

She and her husband George Pemberton are Depression-era timber barons in North Carolina. We’re introduced to them as newlyweds as they got off the train from Boston only to be greeted by a young teenager carrying George’s child along with the girl’s father who had a knife and no mind to negotiate. Serena told the girl she was lucky to have such a sire, but that she wouldn’t be so lucky again. The father wanted to settle matters, and Serena calmly told Pemberton that he should get his knife and do exactly that. At least it was a somewhat honorable fight. Later encounters would be less so.

It didn’t take long once they reached camp for Serena to establish herself as the alpha dog. Her father was a timber man in Colorado before she was orphaned, and he had taught her the business well. The men never doubted her knowledge or fortitude. In the coolest example of her mettle, she imported a large eagle and trained it to kill rattlesnakes with its dagger-like talons. That was one less danger for the men, but plenty of others still existed. It was said that if you took all the body parts that were lost in accidents and stitched them together, you’d get a new man every month. But at that time, you could always get more workers.

Soon enough, major impediments stood in their way. Conservationists wanted the timberland for National Parks, the various interests in the company partnership began to diverge, and the local law didn’t always see eye to eye with Serena and her accomplice in almost all matters, Pemberton. Once it was established the extremes to which Serena and Pemberton¹ would go, there wasn’t much nuance left in the characters. Good and evil were clearly established. With a view of logging as land rape, it could be no other way.

On the good side of the ledger, there was Rachel, the pregnant girl in the first chapter. She, too, was strong and resourceful, but with a lot less control. Things are more difficult with a baby and no savings. She was the third POV character and a good one for showing the life and times. The local sheriff was a good guy, too. He was one of the few officials who could not be bought by the Pembertons. Assorted loggers were featured as well, serving, as someone said, as a kind of Greek chorus. They reflected the highlander culture and language while offering commentary on the conflicts they witnessed. And with the story’s many conflicts, they had plenty to discuss. But I won’t (in the interest of spoiler forbearance).

Despite seeing each successive problem a mile away, and venturing a good guess about what the reactions would be (it’s checkers, not chess), Rash keeps us turning the pages. He’s a good story-teller and has a very fluid style. I liked how he painted the landscape with his words. He also gave a strong sense of how even very simple lives involve specialized survivor skills that you and I probably don’t possess. For instance, Rachel had to know where to look for ginseng, how to keep the bees, and how to patch a chimney. These were as important to her as knowing the mot juste would be to a Valley girl for social survival.

The one thing I didn’t care for in an otherwise great book was how little internal conflict there was once Serena’s relentlessness was established. She ceased to be anything more than an Ayn Rand character raised to the 666th power. There are plenty of other things to like, though. If the following quote by Rash in my edition’s P.S. section is an indication, maybe the main character was the region and its shared humanity all along. Serena was just its foil.

To me, one of the most interesting aspects of literature is how the most intensely “regional” literature is also often the most universal. There’s no better example of this than Joyce’s Ulysses. The best regional writers are like farmers drilling for water; if they bore deep and true enough into that particular place, beyond the surface of local color, they tap into universal correspondences, what Jung called the collective unconscious. Faulkner’s Mississippi, Munro’s Ontario, and Marquez’s Colombia are exotic, and they are also familiar.

¹I was tempted to shorten this pair to S&P, but I suspect they need no further insinuation as symbols of big business as it’s purported to be, rapacious and predatory.
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Sep 15, 2008 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorites-fiction, favorites

In the primeval woods of North Carolina, young timber baron, George Pemberton, brings his bride, Serena, to live with him in his kingdom. He had been busy enough already, fathering a child with a local girl and clear-cutting wide swaths of land. Serena quickly establishes herself as a power in her own right, knowledgeable about the timber business from her family background in Colorado, frightened of nothing and totally, totally ruthless. She is both an almost deitific figure and a satanic one....more

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Feb 17, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, if-i-ever-start-a-book-group

Wicked good storytelling.
Wicked.
Good.

Love to see the "power hungry female" fleshed out and OWNING it. Truly unlikeable character(s) in actions and deeds. Business partner not agree with your vision? Hunting accident. Disloyalty? Make an example out of him. The courageous and altruistic? SO DEAD. Strip and rape the land, too. Then move onto another country. Repeat.

Wow. Just wow.
READ IT.

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Jul 13, 2009 Elise Deal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone!

Just finished book for second time. It's a literary masterpiece. Ron Rash is not only a great southern writer, but one of the best contermpary writers. This time around I really caught the richness of the secondary characters and how their commentary and observations added to the narrative and the development of the three central characters. As a native North Carolinian, the beautiful description and protrayl of the mountain lndscape, culture and people warmed my heart. Go read this book!!

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Apr 12, 2010 Nate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am now officially a huge Ron Rash fan. This novel is starker and less whimsical than Cold Mountain, but the Southern landscape of years ago (in this case the 1930s) is captured just as elegantly, and reminds us of what a wilderness the NC mtns were at that time. This is a beautifully rendered tale of greed, murder, and revenge. The symbolism is understated and the supporting characters are fascinating. I loved it.

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Apr 03, 2013 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

A really enjoyable fictional account of the struggle between loggers and environmentalists trying to establish the Smokey Mountain National Forest during the early years of the Great Depression played out mainly through the activities of an ambitious and unscrupulous (and deadly) co-owner of a logging company in the North Carolina mountains near Asheville (and up into Tennessee). Logging was an extremely dangerous trade, but the economic downturn provided ready workers, and the company showed li...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Corny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This a Greek tragedy complete with Greek Chorus, set in North Carolina during the Depression. The author is obviously very familiar with the area which now makes up the Great Smokies and tells his story against the background of the National Park Movement. His protagonist is an Electra-like Amazon whose ambition and ruthlessness seem limitless. No one escapes her wrath. In fact, she seemed so one dimensional that her actions were always predictable.
On the other hand, her husband, a much better d...more

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Nov 20, 2008 Lara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-harper-collins

I would give this three & a half stars if I had that option. Sadly, I do not. I feel a bit shmuckish for not enjoying this book more than I did, and after some serious pondering I have come to the conclusion that I would probably have loved this book if I had a Y chromosome.

Seriously.

It's not that it isn't entertaining. I just couldn't really get myself to give two craps about any of the characters. And I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to find any of it realistic. (I mean, seriously? T...more

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Oct 19, 2009 Sarah Ryburn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, southern-lit, 5-star-reads

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. (so now i'm almost 200 pages in, and the main characters- pemberton and serena- are starting to remind me of macbeth and lady macbeth. not just murder... think lady macbeth's tongue-lashing of her guilt-stricken husband when macbeth begins to waver in their plans. as i recall, she boasts that she would rather dash the brains of her own child against the ground than show the remorse that troubles macbeth after duncan's murder. she calls him a coward. hmm... lady serena?) interesting to reread wha...more (so now i'm almost 200 pages in, and the main characters- pemberton and serena- are starting to remind me of macbeth and lady macbeth. not just murder... think lady macbeth's tongue-lashing of her guilt-stricken husband when macbeth begins to waver in their plans. as i recall, she boasts that she would rather dash the brains of her own child against the ground than show the remorse that troubles macbeth after duncan's murder. she calls him a coward. hmm... lady serena?) interesting to reread what i wrote at what is approximately the novel's midpoint. i've since seen a short review of ron rash's book that calls it "an appalachian retelling of macbeth." appropriate.

rash is a great storyteller and offers such beautiful prose. it doesn't even bother me when he writes in fragments. that's high praise. he writes fiction with a poetic quality, probably because he is also a published poet. this novel is superb. it's strange to me to think that serena and one foot in eden come from the same author of saints at the river– the former two so far outstrip the latter. what i love most about rash's story is the ending. literally, i loved the final two pages. pemberton's death scene is stunningly beautiful and worth the entire novel to read. i realized long before rash's hero what was coming, but the ending loses nothing for this foreknowledge. it's really not that hard to figure out, and that's the brilliance of it. rash writes his characters so well that pemberton's blindness to the inevitable seems not only plausible but necessary. the cry he hears just at the end, like an infant's cry, is gorgeous imagery. the hand opening, his certainty that serena has come for him, it's all so masterfully wrought. it's the culmination of 370+ pages. rash accomplishes all that a good story should accomplish and with the flair of, dare i say it, shakespeare.

like the bard, the point isn't to stun the reader (or audience, as the case may be) with a surprise ending but to interweave character and plot so tightly that the ending procedes organically and ineluctably from the beginning. both stories (serena and macbeth) remind me of the old anglo-saxon notion of wyrd– each of us is ultimately caught in the web of our own character and choices. we are prisoners of ourselves, of the character traits and flaws that influence our choices and that ultimately make and break us. pemberton, like macbeth, is a classic tragic hero who orchestrates, however blindly, his own destruction and whose fall is all the more tragic because his story begins with the promise of such greatness. serena reminds me both of lady macbeth and the witches– she seems at times more gruesome spectre than human being, yet there is that final scene with pemberton and the photograph... perhaps she is so gruesome because she remains so essentially human.

altogether, stunning. ron rash is absolutely one of my favorite authors. (i almost wish to be a teacher again so that i could plan a comparative literature curriculum around serena and macbeth.) in addition to his characters, the author again paints a rich and living portrait of his beloved appalachia. as in one foot in eden the setting is character, too, and gives to the novel both rooting in time and place and somehow an other-worldly atmosphere, haunting and mythical. (less)

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this beautifully written gothic novel, Rash paints an unforgettable portrait of a truly frightening woman, an "Ayn Rand [character] taken to sociopathic extremes" (Christian Science Monitor). Drawing comparisons to Lady Macbeth and Medea, critics were repulsed and fascinated by Serena. Though some felt that her wickedness, undiluted by the slightest pangs of compassion or empathy, crossed into the realm of caricature toward the end, they all agreed that it was impossible to put the book down.

...more

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Dec 13, 2008 Scott Sanders rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ron Rash is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. He has total control over the craft, and he's an absolute pleasure to read. This book, from beginning to end, didn't disappoint. Highly recommend.

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Dec 04, 2008 Naomi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is quite a tale of an evil woman who stops at nothing to get what she wants.

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Dec 28, 2008 Margaret Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a great new book by Ron Rash, who teaches at Western Carolina University. It is set in a lumber camp in the mountains of North Carolina during the Great Depression. The title character, Serena Pemberton, has just joined her husband at the camp as the book begins. Although most of the manager's wives stay away from the rough-and-tumble, backwoods camp, Serena quickly asserts her leadership.

The opening chapter reveals that Serena's husband has impregnated one of the local camp workers, set...more

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Dec 17, 2008 Kathleen Gilroy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this book on one of the Times best-of-the-year recommendations and blazed through it (even though I left the library copy at O'Hare and had to buy the hardback which will now go back to the library to replace the book I lost.)

It has the aura of a morality play about the consequences of unchecked capitalism and its brute destruction of the environment and people. The novel is set in a logging camp at the beginning of the depression. Pemberton, the owner, has married Serena, whom he has kn...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Tripp rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

n first quarter or so of Ron Rash's Serena, I thought the book was over-hyped. Sure, the writing was good, and I thought the demonic Serena was fascinating, in the manner of a poisonous snake. These feelings fell away as I read late into the night and started anew Thanksgiving morning. I brought the book with me to my mother-in-law's, hoping I might steal away for some quiet reading time. No such luck, but just as well, as I would have distracted.

The book opens as Serena and her newlywed husband...more n first quarter or so of Ron Rash's Serena, I thought the book was over-hyped. Sure, the writing was good, and I thought the demonic Serena was fascinating, in the manner of a poisonous snake. These feelings fell away as I read late into the night and started anew Thanksgiving morning. I brought the book with me to my mother-in-law's, hoping I might steal away for some quiet reading time. No such luck, but just as well, as I would have distracted.

The book opens as Serena and her newlywed husband George Pemberton arrive at his North Carolina lumber camp. The arrival is a tad awkward as his pregnant former girlfriend is waiting for him, along with her furious father. The unhappy and violent results of the encounter sets the tone and the principal conflict for the book. The Pembertons rule the camp like feudal lords and have as much regard for their loggers as a medieval baron might for his cannon fodder. Whether by accident or by plan, the life expectancy in the camp isn't terribly high.

Perhaps because the death toll is so great, Rash avoids depicting all but the most important of deaths. Instead he uses a Greek chorus consisting of a few lumberjacks discussing lumber camp goings on, which include the latest victims of the Pembertons. This both keeps the plot movie and it allows Rash to concentrate on the warped Serena and the crumbling George. The character of Serena is nearly too much. She is part Ayn Rand wet dream, part Lady MacBeth, and part Keyser Soze. It helps that Serena is mostly spoken of, rather than shown. This helps prevent her descent into cliche.

Despite the period setting, the book is definitely of the moment. The Pembertons and their allies are racing to cut as many trees as they can before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is created. As that becomes more challenging, Serena turns her eye to the unregulated Amazon. The environmental message is clear, but so is the criticism of the market unbound.

Avoid reading the fly leaf cover. Far too many spoilers. Of course, I read it and still loved the book.(less)

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Apr 23, 2013 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

SERENA. (2008). Ron Rash. ****.
This is a novel about…well, it’s about Serena. Serena is a young woman from Colorado who has managed to attract and marry Pemberton, a lumber magnate who has taken over vast stretches of forest land in what is now The Great Smoky Mountains. It is the middle of the Depression. While financial deals are being cut so that rich men can become richer, Serena becomes one of the plotters on the side of money. The government and private supporters are trying to buy up the...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Sandy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ordinarily books that are shelved under "Horror" are not ones I would pick to read. How, you may ask, could I rate this with 4 stars? Regional literature and a recommendation by a respected friend were what drew me to this book. It is well-written, insightful about that regional population and sprinkled with their regional idiomatic way of speaking. This particular book is written about logging in North Carolina during the early part of the depression (1929). The mountain people of the Smoky Mou...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Depression-era North Carolina was a hard place. In the Western part of the state most people worked hard from cradle to grave for very little reward or luxury, regardless of the economic climate. Most families relied on the land passed on to them from previous generations and survived with the bare necessities. The Depression made men more willing to take on dangerous, even deadly work, and logging the verdant timber forests of the Appalachian region was probably one of the deadliest professions...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Amy S rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

No one is more shocked than me that I am giving this four stars. I hated the first part of the book due to the fact that the characters are so despicable. Set in the late 1920s/early 1930s, the Pembertons are a newly married couple on their way to establishing a timber empire in Western North Carolina. At the same time the government is in a race to acquire as much land as possible to set up the Great Smoky Mountains national park. (Maybe I should have capitalized all that but I'm in my car -- n...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Travis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well this one is well written, and I don't know if I'd ever read a book set in this time and place (Appalachia in the 1930's). Rash certainly makes an effort--largely successful--to raise his setting to the mythical. The Appalachia of Serena is shrouded in darkness and violence, cheats and criminals have risen to a kind of aristocracy, and the only moral code at work is the code of maximized profits, which carries a cost in human life and comes at the expense of natural beauty.

This is all good....more Well this one is well written, and I don't know if I'd ever read a book set in this time and place (Appalachia in the 1930's). Rash certainly makes an effort--largely successful--to raise his setting to the mythical. The Appalachia of Serena is shrouded in darkness and violence, cheats and criminals have risen to a kind of aristocracy, and the only moral code at work is the code of maximized profits, which carries a cost in human life and comes at the expense of natural beauty.

This is all good. Serena could be read as an environmentalist novel, as a story of the 99-percent versus the 1-percent oppressors (it's no contest, because the 1-percenters Rash has invented will take your money, your pride, your home and then your life, at which point they'll move on to your next of kin), or as a psychological character study. Serena is all of these things, but at its core it's an old-fashioned fable, the moral of which seems to be that if you see the likes of Serena in a dark forest or anywhere else, you had best turn the other way and run.

The only problem I had is that Serena herself ended up almost cartoonish. I understand that she's kind of your stereotypical ice queen, and that she's not going to get emotional or explain her actions at the end of the book, but I guess it comes down to surprise. I wanted to be surprised not only by Serena, but by the plot and action.

I think the narrative would have moved naturally toward surprise if Serena had done some of her own dirty work, rather than outsourcing virtually all of it to her henchman Galloway. Not that Galloway isn't a great character. He's creepy, villainous, frightening and memorable. But if Serena had to do her own killing, I think we might have seen deeper into her, just from the natural conflicts that might occur when indiscriminately murdering people.

Ah well. I'll remember Serena and her eagle for quite some time, just as I'll remember the lurking Galloway and the feel the lumber camp. A strong four stars.

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Jul 18, 2012 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very well-written, but not particularly enjoyable to read. The two central characters are horrible, morally bankrupt people. Their disregard for life at the expense of personal profit is shown in parallel through their rape of the land as they log it to barrenness, their treatment of the animals that inhabit the land, their lack of concern over the number of loggers maimed or killed, and the string of murders they commit to further their own interests. These actions are set against the backdrop...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Kerry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I bought this book after being blown away by Ron Rash's "The Cove". I expected another gem of a southern novel, and got one. But where The Cove has the feel of a sweet, sad mountain ballad, Serena is a dark Gothic masterpiece, complete with deteriorating world (in the form of massive clear cutting in the Great Smoky Mountains), tempting villain (Serena herself), and fallen hero (her husband, Pemberton). We are even treated to something of a Greek chorus, in the form of one of the timber crews, w...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Pamela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read this novel twice, first for pleasure and the second time for a book group discussion that I led. The novel is probably Ron Rash’s best work - - it is the gripping story of North Carolina loggers in the 1920’s who are confronted by numerous challenges, from local workers, from the desire of individuals who want to develop the National Park System, and from their own desire to profit and see their dreams come true.

Serena is a new wife, from Colorado, to Pemberton, the owner of land th...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Kyler Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rash has combined his unique and heartfelt view of the Appalachian wilderness and paired it against a larger than life, disturbingly vicious female character. The book shows what great devastation and ecological impact that unchecked consumption has on the environment and the ruthless attitude of business gone wild.
The story is a slow-burn narrative, not quick and suspenseful, but contemplative. It takes its time in developing each character and showing not only how they react to each other, bu...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Kathie Reynolds rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my first book by Ron Rash. I am drawn to books with a sense of landscape, a historical connection, and characters that make me forget I am reading.
I have never been to North Carolina. Prior to reading this book I thought of it as a southern, big tobacco state. I have southern roots and Ron Rash is a master of southerness. (for lack of a better word)
Ron Rash was being interviewed on NPR and I ordered two of his books. He read from his new book "The Cove". I was addicted to his writers vo...more

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Mar 16, 2012 lana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'd give this two and a half stars if I could, I think.

Serena is the wife of a logger and would-be timber baron. While they seem perfectly matched to each other in the beginning, Serena's ambition knows no bounds and ultimately her blood runs colder than that of her husband. She will stop at nothing, and while initially her intelligence and strength are admirable qualities for me, she rapidly becomes a frightening and grotesque character. Between the horse, the eagle, her penchant for cold, her...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel opens with a bang. Pemberton brings his new wife, Serena, home to Appalachia and his logging camp. Waiting for him as the train stops is the father of the young woman who is pregnant with Pemberton's child. The girl's father plans to kill Pemberton as his pregnant daughter watches. Things turn out differently, however. Pemberton, with the blessing of his wife Serena, duels with the father and kills him. Serena gives the daughter the knife from her father's body and tells her that she...more This novel opens with a bang. Pemberton brings his new wife, Serena, home to Appalachia and his logging camp. Waiting for him as the train stops is the father of the young woman who is pregnant with Pemberton's child. The girl's father plans to kill Pemberton as his pregnant daughter watches. Things turn out differently, however. Pemberton, with the blessing of his wife Serena, duels with the father and kills him. Serena gives the daughter the knife from her father's body and tells her that she will never get any help from them for her child.

The book progresses as the couple builds a logging empire, razing the land all around them to stumps and polluting the environment. This is told in the back-drop of the Great Depression and FDR's starting up of National Parks. Naturally, the Pembertons are opposed to parks and they buy up all the land they can to log while buying off all the people they can to turn the outcomes in their favor. Those in their way, they kill or have killed. There is no compassion forthcoming from these two.

Many others die due to the horrible conditions in the logging camp. As soon as someone is injured they are fired and replaced. If they die, the next person waiting for a job gets hired. There is no compensation and certainly no compassion. Everyone is expendable to the Pembertons.

Even in love there is a visage of portending evil. Serena wants Pemberton to be satisfied in life with only her - the two of them together against the world. She describes their lovemaking as 'annihilation'. This is symbolic of the two of them needing only one another and the rest of the world being expendable if they do not fit into Serena and Pembertan's plans. Unfortunately, Serena can not produce an heir and she begins to worry whether Pemberton is secretly helping his illegitimate son and his mother.

Serena goes around on her white Arabian horse with an Eagle trained to kill rattlesnakes and other enemies. As she begins to suspect that Pemberton might have some interests that are not solely her, the balance of love and power begin to shift.

I found this a powerful book, beautifully written with wonderfully developed characterization. The sense of time and place is superb. I highly recommend this book.
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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

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Quotes from Serena

“Then one morning she’d begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn’t remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she’d realized again what she’d learned at five when her mother left – that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small things first, the smell of the soap her mother had bathed with, the color of the dress she’d worn to church, then after a while the sound of her mother’s voice, the color of her hair. It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief that was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree’s heartwood. (51)” — 31 people liked it

“She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)” — 15 people liked it

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Serena

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