The Caretaker is a beautifully written, heartbreaking story of love, friendship, and family set in a small North Carolina town during the Korean War. The characters are all carefully explored and very three dimensional, so much so that it's hard not to have some empathy for even those whose actions are abhorrent. Everyone has a detailed backstory which informs their behavior and this novel illustrates that beautifully. I will absolutely recommend this book.

I absolutely loved this book. It comes as no surprise to me that Ron Rash is also a poet. His beautiful, subtle prose is effortless, and I found the novel very filmic in its style. Although the love story between sixteen year old Naomi and the more privileged Jacob is at the centre of the narrative, the novel is also about male friendship, loyalty and a misplaced sense of familial duty. Set against the backdrop of the Korean War, it's a quiet page tuner. Highly recommended.

Set in the early 50’s in North Carolina, Jacob is fighting in Korea and Naomi, his young wife is pregnant and alone. Jacob’s parents have disinherited him since the deeply disapproved of marriage and not even the thought of her carrying their grandchild has softened their stance towards her. Blackburn Grant, disabled by childhood polio, will not be going to war. The facial damage from the polio and the subsequent bullying and social exclusion has led Blackburn to live a solitary life working at the cemetery and enjoying the nature surrounding him. He is Jacob’s best friend, Jacob showed him kindness in childhood when so many didn’t and now he is taking care of Naomi. When Jacob’s parents learn of their son’s injury in Korea, they devise a plan to get Naomi out of his life forever. A deeply felt, sparely written novel about friendship, love and loss.

I hadn't read any of this author's books but the blurb for this one drew me in and I'm so glad that I requested it. It's not a long book and the events happen over a short period of time, but the author packs so much in. For me it was compelling reading. A book all about relationships and how a single bad choice can be the catalyst for so much pain. Blackburn is a wonderful character. Living with disfigurement caused by polio and the subsequent ostracism because of his difference. He was was the one I was rooting for throughout.
The book highlights the prejudice, cruelty and bigotry that pervades every society when confronted by anything other than the 'norm'.

I loved this book. It's beautifully written and had me hooked right away. I loved the characters, the setting and how realistic it all was. It's about people, both good and bad, and doing the right thing. Very glad to have had the chance to read this author.

When Jacob falls in love with and marries poor maid Naomi, the match receives widespread disapproval from the small-town community and he is disinherited by his parents. When Naomi falls pregnant and Jacob is called up to fight in the Korean War, he begs his friend Blackburn to look out for her. Blackburn is himself an outcast, derided for his deformed face, the result of childhood polio, but his looks hide a loyal and caring heart. When a terrible deception is inflicted on Jacob and Naomi, it seems all chance of future happiness for them has been lost. This is a beautifully told story about the power of friendship and love and the destruction that can be wrought by families thinking they know best. Understated but lyrical, it has a power often lacking in longer, more elaborate novels. The characters are well drawn and there is a strong sense of place and of small-town life in the fifties. A small gem.

A beautifully written novel covering friendship, love, betrayal and sacrifice. I was so invested in this gentle story I finished it in one day. A book that will linger on the mind and absolutely perfect as a book club read. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for this review copy which is bound to be a bestseller.

The Caretaker is beautifully written and absorbing read about the nature of loss and courage - and the power dynamics in a small town.

While you could take issue with plausibility around the secret at the heart of the book, for me The Caretaker has the quality of a fable. Realism is less important than the subtly drawn characters and the different ways they confront their grief. The voice of Blackburn, in particular, stays with you, with his acute observations of people and the natural world.
*
Copy from Netgalley

Easily a new Classic of American Literature.
Loved absolutely every minute of it: the easy narrative style, being able to see the events from everyone's POV, the gentleness in writing grief.
A novel I'll be happy to revisit and recommend over and over again.
The briefness also lends itself to the view that we're just catching a glimpse into these peoples' lives, so much more has happened before and much more awaits them ahead

The Caretaker by Ron Rash is a great novel and I enjoyed it immensely. I was completed invested in the characters, hateful or otherwise and the descriptions of the American south during the 1950’s. I will certainly be looking to read more novels by this author in the future.

I read this in a couple of sittings and didn't want to put it down. This story from small-town America has a stretch of a plotline, but once I got past that, I was hooked. The cruel deception enacted by Jacob's parents is rather far=fetched but the author made it believable. by his writing, the capturing of the seasons and characterisations, particular that of Jacob's lifelong friend, Blackburn, the caretaker of the title, It reminded me of a quiet classic in the mould of Thomas Hardy and maybe John Steinbeck.
Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

A good old-fashioned story of life on American homesteads, typical family feuds, and the interaction with life beyond the homestead boundaries.
I loved it.
Many thanks to the publisher for an advance reader's copy for honest review.

This is the kind of the books that will get you out of a reading slump. The writing style and the story make the book feel like one of the classics. I needed this kind of book just now.

Set in 1951, during the Korean War, Ron Rash’s The Caretaker has at its heart the cruellest of deceptions set in train when the son of a small town’s wealthiest family is reported wounded and on his way home where his pregnant wife is waiting for him. Working as a hotel maid, Naomi is so far from the wife the Hamptons had set their heart on for Jacob that they disinherited their only son when the couple eloped. Before he left for Korea, Jacob had asked his childhood friend to look after Naomi. Blackburn makes sure that the couple’s farmhouse is in order, taking Naomi home to Tennessee as her due date draws near. When the telegram arrives at the town’s post office, addressed to Naomi telling her of Jacob’s return, a misguided act of kindness leads to a deception which causes terrible heartache.
It's the characterisation that makes this novel stand out for me. The Hamptons are carefully portrayed as largely decent people who suffered the deaths of two children before Jacob was born. Blackburn is the upstanding, loyal friend, a decent man who continues to do the right thing despite temptation and shunning by the town thanks to his disfigurement from polio. As ever, Rash’s use of language is strikingly evocative, his descriptions of the natural world marking the change of seasons beautifully. The ending wasn’t quite what I expected but that’s no bad thing.