The Caretaker
By Ron Rash
★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10
336 pages
What’s it about?
This story takes place in rural North Carolina in 1951. Blackburn Gant was disfigured by polio as a child. He has had a lonely existence except for his deep friendship with Jacob Hampton. Jacob’s family is small town royalty, but Jacob has always been kind to Blackburn. Jacob falls in love with a woman named Naomi that his parents don’t approve of. When Jacob is suddenly drafted into the Korean War he asks Blackburn to watch out for Naomi.
What did it make me think about?
How hard it is to do the right thing.
Should I read it?
I have had so many people rave to me about Ron Rash but it took a friend giving me this book to try this author. What a fool I am! This novel is beautifully written, with strong characters, and great pacing. What a different story than I expected. I am so glad I read this one! Very highly recommended.
A passage I marked
“But as Naomi lay in the dark, she wanted to tell Annie Mae about an ordinary day. Or what had seemed so, because now she knew it hadn’t been ordinary at all. Maybe that was the saddest thing about life, that you couldn’t understand, not really, how good something was while living inside of it. How many such moments swept past, lost forever.”
