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Rash is the real deal, an excellent poet and short story writer who has written a great novel (One Foot in Eden) and two very good ones (Saints at the River and The World Made Straight) before this one. Serena, with its grand and sometimes bizarre gestures (the eagle, the one-handed henchman), is both greater and lesser than One Foot in Eden (though it, to be sure, also had a witch of its very own). The difference is that the earlier novel is quiet, assured, and respectful of its audience's feelings, whereas Serena is balls-to-the-wall operatic from page 1.
He's the best writer working in and about the mountain South today, a geography I hate specifying since it will, in some readers' minds, limit his abilities and aspirations, as well putting him into a category they needn't bother with. So let's change that to: One of the five best novelists working today.
