Classical Music in Ron Rash’s The Cove and The World Made Straight

Ron Rash’s fiction often features inimical figures from outside Appalachia, seeking to pillage the region’s resources or bring about unwanted change. This trend is sufficiently common that many commentators on Rash’s work seem to have adopted an interpretive default whereby outsiders are presumed to be bad. However, there is one area in which Rash typically gives outside influence his blessing: classical music, particularly opera. This article analyzes Rash’s references to opera and oratorio in The Cove (2012) and The World Made Straight (2006) to better understand Rash’s attitude toward the world beyond Appalachia.