When the 12-year-old daughter of a wealthy banker drowns in South Carolina's Tamassee River, her death sets off an emotionally charged battle between the grieving parents, who want to put up a dam to recover her body, and the local environmentalists, who will risk everything to defend the pristine state of their river. Rash pens his novel in clear, unadorned prose appropriate to its ripped-from-the-headlines premise; only the lyrical opening passage, which recounts the girl's death, reflects his skill as a poet (Among the Believers; Raising the Dead). But the book is rich with nuance, mostly because Rash selects Maggie Glenn as his first-person narrator. A Tamassee native who now works as a news photographer in the state capital, Columbia, Maggie has deep ties to the town, but she's detached from the main fray. As a result, her news angles and her romantic attachments keep shifting. Maggie's rage against her father isn't sufficiently explored to carry the weight it bears in the plot, but Rash compensates for this weakness by creating detailed, highly particular characters. A professor of Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University and author of a previous Southern novel, One Foot in Eden, Rash clearly knows the people and places he writes about, and that authenticity pays off in a conclusion that packs an unexpected and powerful punch. Agent, Marly Rusoff. (Aug. 6) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A gripping environmental drama pits the rescue of a drowned child against the integrity of a river. Narrator Maggie Glenn works for a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina. The 28-year-old photographer was born and raised in Tamassee, in the mountains to the west, and she's assigned, along with star reporter Allen Hemphill, to cover a big story in her hometown. Three weeks earlier, 12-year-old Ruth Kowalsky had been sucked into a whirlpool in the Tamassee River; county divers have failed to dislodge her body from the rock where it lies trapped. Ruth's father Herb, a powerful banker from Minnesota, wants to make the divers' job easier by erecting a portable dam to divert the water flow. One problem: Erection means drilling holes into the bedrock, and federal law protects the river from any violation of its natural state. Storywriter and second-novelist Rash (One Foot in Eden, not reviewed) sets up a finely balanced confrontation between Luke Miller, fearless and incorruptible champion of the river (though no saint), and Ruth's grieving parents, who want to give her a proper burial. Uncomfortably in the middle is the district ranger. Back in Tamassee, Maggie has more on her mind than her job. She has been estranged from her father ever since her brother Ben and she were badly burned in a childhood accident for which the old man was responsible. Now he's dying of cancer. Can Maggie make peace with him, as her more forgiving brother did years ago? On the job, she takes a haunting photograph of the despondent Herb Kowalsky. Along with Hemphill's reporting, it helps tip the balance in favor of the temporary dam. Luke, her ex-lover and mentor, is furious, and Maggie herself, secretly on his side, regrets taking it. But the suspense isn't over. The river is rising. Will the dam hold long enough for the divers to retrieve the girl? Spare, resonant, unputdownable. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In his second novel set in Appalachia, poet Rash blends a classic environmental struggle with a budding romance. A young girl drowns in South Carolina's Tamassee River, her body lodged in a deep eddy, making it impossible to retrieve except by damming the river upstream. Backed by the Wild and Scenic River Act, environmentalists protest loudly. Photographer Maggie Glenn, who grew up in Tamassee, is assigned by her paper to cover the story, along with reporter Allen Hemphill, a Pulitzer finalist whose work Maggie admires. Locals objecting to precedents that would allow future alterations to the pristine river are pitted against the drowned girl's parents, who make an impassioned plea for the recovery of her remains. At the same time, Maggie and Allen's relationship gradually shifts from professional to romantic, as he begins to put aside memories of the deaths of his wife and daughter. Appalachian dialects and Rash's lyrical description of this small Appalachian town create a strong sense of place, adding to his well-spoken plea against the devastation caused by damming the nation's rivers. --Deborah Donovan Copyright 2004 Booklist

A girl has drowned in the Tamassee River, but environmentalists argue that retrieving her body from the eddy where it has settled may damage the river irreparably. Journalist Maggie Glenn has lots to contemplate when she returns to her riverside hometown to report. A debut from poet and short story writer Rash. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.