The Caretaker

Starred review from July 31, 2023
The potent and rewarding latest from Rash (The Risen) centers on a Southern man whose simple life is challenged by the tenets of loyalty, friendship, family, and honesty. Blackburn Gant is a solitary man, scarred by a battle with childhood polio and left behind in Blowing Rock, N.C., by his family, who have settled in Florida. In 1951, Blackburn becomes the town’s hilltop cemetery caretaker after the pastor offers him the position. His caretaking duties grow more serious, when his best friend Jacob Hampton, son of a prominent local family, is drafted into the Korean War and leaves his teenage wife, Naomi—uneducated, friendless, and pregnant—in Blackburn’s care until he returns. When Jacob met and hurriedly eloped with Naomi, his family disinherited him and, while generous to the townsfolk through their storekeeping business, they refuse to offer her any aid. After a sketchy encounter with Jacob’s irate father during her final trimester, Naomi returns home to Tennessee. When Jacob is medically discharged after a combat injury and returns to Blowing Rock, his parents manipulate the grim situation into an opportunity to rid the family of Naomi and her child forever. Rash expertly and seamlessly ratchets up the suspense and melodrama as both sides of this family feud seek their own version of justice with Blackburn caught up in the maelstrom. The lyrically nuanced prose faithfully evokes the Appalachian landscape, and Rash again showcases an ability to dig beneath the surface of his characters to expose their base desires and intentions. This is exactly the kind of humanitarian storytelling that fans have come to expect and savor from him.

June 10, 2024

Rash's (The Risen) latest follows Blackburn Gant, whose life was derailed by a childhood bout of polio; he now works as a cemetery caretaker in 1950s North Carolina. Blackburn's best friend Jacob is the son of the town's wealthy Lampton family, who have disowned Jacob after his recent marriage to Naomi, his 16-year-old bride from Tennessee. When Jacob is drafted to fight in the Korean War, he begs Blackburn to look after Naomi, who is pregnant and has no other support. Blackburn takes this responsibility very seriously. Then tragedy strikes--Jacob is grievously wounded in Korea, and the tragic fallout, initiated by his Machiavellian parents, takes them all on a suspenseful and heartbreaking journey. Cronin narrates in a sympathetic tone, capturing Blackburn's conflicted feelings about Jacob and the Lamptons and conveying the core of this intensely honorable, kind, and lonely man. He gives Naomi a bright energy and sweetness, followed by deep grief. He voices Jacob's hateful parents equally vividly, helping to flesh out two villains consumed by a sick version of love. Cronin capably amps up the suspense to an almost unbearable level. VERDICT Listeners will become utterly absorbed in this gothic drama with echoes of Wiley Cash and Tom Franklin.--B. Allison Gray

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