Riveting, often heartbreaking stories that take readers through country that is figuratively and literally unmapped. These stories are set in a nameless community too small to be called a town, a place where wanting an education is a mark of ungodly arrogance and dowsing for water a legitimate occupation. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.
Kentucky Straight: Stories
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The stories in this debut collection share more than a setting in poor and sparsely populated Kentucky; they share a certainty and frankness of language that renders them powerful. When a young boy's grandfather presents himself after an extended absence, the boy wonders if he should believe that he's his grandfather: "Grandfathers whittled a lot and taught their grandsons how to fish. Lije was just old." Offutt's visual imagery is equally strong and direct. After a man loses a leg in a construction accident and is taken to the hospital, one of his colleagues carries the severed limb around for a while, unsure of what to do with it. Many of the stories center on the isolation underlying social relationships. A pool-playing young man who longs to escape the grim hog farm that is his home is distracted from his game only by his seductive sister, who drunkenly visits strange men in their vans. At a poker game held in a smokehouse, an eager gambler stakes a bet on the size of his penis, and wins, but ends up feeling humiliated anyway. Offutt, who grew up in the Kentucky Appalachians, offers taut stories filled with strained relationships and unarticulated desires; his characters deceive themselves into believing that their lives are simpler than they are.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Inside Flap
Riveting, often heartbreaking stories that take readers through country that is figuratively and literally unmapped. These stories are set in a nameless community too small to be called a town, a place where wanting an education is a mark of ungodly arrogance and dowsing for water a legitimate occupation. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Straight, no chaser,
By CR (New York, Prince Street) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kentucky Straight: Stories (Paperback)
Dream tinker, Chris Offut, takes us into the woods with a kerosene lamp and holds the light to a place in ourselves we visit even less often. There's no room in these stories for anything but the story being told and there lies the straight, no chaser. If this book was a season it'd be the spring rains. If this book was a car it'd be a tow-truck. If this book was a a museum piece it'd belong in the American Museum of Natural History. After reading the third story in this collection, THE LEAVING ONE, I knew I was going to begin this book again after finishing it. It's difficult to place the corect amount of stars on a book such as this. I'd probably have to give it a planet, like Venus, as well.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From The Holler,
By Crosser (Lansing, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kentucky Straight: Stories (Paperback)
A well written short story is my favorite thing to read. Mr. Offutt's book "Kentucky Straight" is full of ones that more than suffice. I enjoy his honesty. He allows the reader to objectively peak around a hickory tree and truly see Appalachia. His stories ring so true, that i would not be surprised if someone from his holler might mistaken them to be fact. Mr. Offutt vividly brings the woods to the reader. I suggest that anyone reading these stories for the first time read them outside, under a shade tree. Xer...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A voice as clear as spring water.,
By
This review is from: Kentucky Straight: Stories (Paperback)
This remarkable collection of stories is well named; it is, indeed, Kentucky, straight. No frills, no gimmicks, no adornment, just a clear voice telling stories that draw a reader in from the first paragraph. "Old of the Moon" took my breath away. "Smokehouse" should be required reading for any boomer tempted to whine their way through mid-life. "Nine-Ball" makes you look at gun racks in pick-up trucks in an entirely new light. In his pure voice, this writer leaves us with extraordinary images: bills of cash twisted around barbs in a stretch of fence; splitting a wooden match and saving half for later; roads not good for hauling things in, but only for taking coal out. Each of the stories in this collection is a gem and this reader found herself thinking about them long after they'd been read.
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