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by Ron Rash
Saints
at the River addresses a common problem encountered by a country
with a diminishing wilderness, but it is tragedy with a human face
that turns the tide, making legal decisions all the more difficult:
protect the land as dictated by law or make exemptions for deserving
humans who are suffering. The Tamassee River is protected by
environmental law as a Wild and Scenic River in
South Carolina, one
of the few pristine waterways kept out of the reach of developers,
but it is a long, bitter struggle by the residents to achieve such
protective status for the river.
However, when a young girl falls drowns near the falls, her body
tapped by the hydraulic intensity of the churning water, her parents
are distraught. They cannot recover the body. Five weeks later, with
media gathered to witness the proceedings, meetings are held to
determine whether a temporary dam can divert the water long enough
to free the body. A critical factor in the debate is the grieving
mother, whose religious conviction is that her daughter's body must
be reunited with her soul for burial. This mother's anguish is
powerful and moving to the onlookers, her subdued mien all but
drowning out the eloquent arguments of a local environmentalist, who
says the river has claimed the girl and that she should be left in
peace, part of the terrible harmony of nature.
Maggie Glenn, a former resident of Oconee County in the
Appalachia's, is now a photojournalist in Colombia,
South Carolina.
Sent by her newspaper with award-winning journalist Allen Hemphill
to cover the story, Maggie is forced to relive her personal demons
and long antipathy to a father who is dying of cancer. Maggie shoots
a stunning photo that does much to sway public opinion on the side
of the drowned girl's parents and the temporary dam, but she has
second thoughts when the people she grew up with react to her
perceived betrayal. Sorting through her mixed reactions, Maggie
develops feelings for Hemphill, their new relationship charged with
conflicting sentiments each has about the river controversy. But
Maggie is not ready to make her peace with the past. It will take
the unfolding drama surrounding the drowning to wake the young woman
to reconciliation of past with present.
This simple story constructs an ever-more common issue, the
protection and conservancy of natural assets and all that entails.
Clearly, when a sentimental twist is added, it is natural for the
public to demand exception to the law to alleviate the suffering of
victims. Often such exceptions precipitate the destruction of the
protected region. Rash outlines the controversy with an unbiased eye
in thoughtful prose, giving equal weight to both sides, illustrating
the psychological nuances that color such decisions. But the river
moves on inexorably, carrying its dead forever in its watery
embrace, nature's voice often overridden by the cacophony of human
need.
Review written by
Luan
Gaines
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