Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories (50 page)

“If Matt ever shows up at one your signings, wish him well for me.”

After Jason left, I talked to the bookstore owner a few minutes, then walked back to my hotel. It was only five blocks but I wasn’t used to Denver’s altitude, so I was out of breath when I got there. I had a couple of drinks at the bar, then took the elevator up to my room. The curtains were pulled back and Denver sparkled below. Jason’s home was down there and I wondered if he was already asleep. In the darkness beyond the city, jagged mountains rose. On the flight back to Carolina the next morning, I saw them from the passenger window. They were different from the mountains back home. Young, treeless, no hollowed out coves. Snow lay on summits, yet to be softened by time.

“Hard Times”—first published in
Sewanee Review
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Three A.M. and the Stars Were Out”—first printed in
Our State
magazine, republished in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“The Ascent”—first published in
Tin House
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Night Hawks”—first published in
Grist
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“The Trusty”—first published in
The New Yorker
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Back of Beyond”—first published in
Tin House
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Lincolnites”—first published in
Smoky Mountain Living
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Into the Gorge”—first published in
The Southern Review
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Return”—first published in
Mossy Creek Reader
, reprinted in
Casualties

“Waiting for the End of the World”—first printed in
Oxford American
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Burning Bright”—first published in
Ecotone
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“The Woman Who Believed in Jaguars”—first published in
Carolina Quarterly
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Where the Map Ends”—first published in
The Atlantic
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven”—first published in
The Warwick Review
(England), reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Their Ancient, Glittering Eyes”—first published in
The Kenyon Review
, republished in
Chemistry and Other Stories

“Falling Star”—first published in
Crossroads
, republished in
Burning Bright

“The Magic Bus”—first published in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Something Rich and Strange”—first published in
Shade 2004
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“The Dowry”—first published in
The Southern Review
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“A Sort of Miracle”—first published in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“The Corpse Bird”—first published in
The South Carolina Review
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“Dead Confederates”—first published in
Shenandoah
, reprinted in
Burning Bright

“The Woman at the Pond”—first published in
The Southern Review
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“A Servant of History”—first published in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Twenty-Six Days”—first published in
The Washington Post
, reprinted in
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Last Rite”—first published in the
Greensboro Review
, reprinted in
This Is Where We Live: New North Carolina Short Stories
,
Casualties
, and
Chemistry and Other Stories

“Blackberries in June”—first published in
Chemistry and Other Stories

“Chemistry”—first published in
Casualties
, reprinted in
Chemistry and Other Stories

“The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth”—first published in
A Carolina Literary Companion
, reprinted in
The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth and Other Stories from Cliffside, North Carolina

“The Harvest”—first published in
The Book of Men Anthology
, edited by Colum McCann

“Badeye”—first published in
The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth and Other Stories from Cliffside, North Carolina

“Love and Pain in the New South”—first published in
Charleston Magazine
, reprinted in
The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth and Other Stories from Cliffside, North Carolina

“Shiloh,” previously entitled “The Return”—first published in
TriQuarterly

“Outlaws”—first published in
Oxford American

PHOTO © BY ULF ANDERSEN

RON RASH
is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner finalist and
New York Times
bestselling novel
Serena
, in addition to four other prizewinning novels, including
The Cove, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River
, and
The World Made Straight
; four collections of poems; and five collections of stories, among them
Burning Bright
, which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and
Chemistry and Other Stories
, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
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FICTION

Nothing Gold Can Stay

The Cove

Burning Bright

Serena

The World Made Straight

Saints at the River

One Foot in Eden

Chemistry and Other Stories

Casualties

The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth

POETRY

Waking

Raising the Dead

Among the Believers

Eureka Mill

COVER DESIGN BY ALLISON SALTZMAN

COVER ARTWORK © BY JAMIE HEIDEN

These pages
serve as a continuation of this copyright page.

SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE
. Copyright © 2014 by Ron Rash. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-234934-7

EPub Edition November 2014 ISBN 9780062349361

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