From award-winning author Ron Rash ("One of the great American authors at work today" —The New York Times) comes a breathtaking love story and a searing examination of the acts we seek to justify in the name of duty, family, honor, and love.

Blowing Rock, North Carolina, 1951. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interactions with the living. But when his only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob’s wife, Naomi, as well.

Jacob and Naomi’s elopement has scandalized the community and angered Jacob’s parents. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home from the war, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer, even as a stunning betrayal shatters familial bonds.

A profound examination of friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting story of unfolding deceit, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for empathetic compassion and selfish destruction, all justified as acts of love.