Out of the Woods: Stories

by Chris Offutt

Book Overview

A new collection of stories by the acclaimed author of Kentucky Straight, whom Tobias Wolff has deemed one of the best writers of short fiction in his--or any--generation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684825562
• ISBN13: 9780684825564
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

High Praise for Chris Offutt

Presently you won't see Chris Offutt's name on any bestseller's list, but please don't let that discourage you from reading his wonderful work. In "Out of the Woods," Offutt follows the lives of ex-cons, alcoholics, gamblers, and drifters as they struggle to find direction and purpose.Offutt's characters share one common thread, they were all born and raised in Appalachian communities in Kentucky. Reared in a culture in and of itself, these Kentuckians face harsh realities as they try to carve out a path for themselves in mainstream America. Most grapple with a strong desire to get out and see the world yet simultaneously they fight the urge to return to the comfort and security of home. In "Moscow, Idaho," a young prisoner on grave digging duty aims to turn over a new leaf and wonders if he will ever find a woman, a good job, and a town to settle in. "Two-Eleven All Around" is the story of a man who is so desperate for attention from his girlfriend, that he stages his own arrest in hope that she will hear about it while listening to her radio. These tales combine perseverance and heartbreak into poetic prose.There have been comparisons of Offutt's writing to that of Raymond Carver's. Only in my opinion, Offutt is better. Carver's characters tend to present with a flat affect, but Offutt is able to take the reader subtly and deeply into his characters minds. Chris Offutt excels at what he writes about because he lived the life of his characters. He grew up in a small Appalachian community and at the age of nineteen he meandered across the country where he went through more than fifty jobs before returning to home and raising a family. Chris Offutt has come full circle and there is no doubt that he will find himself a place in the world of literature.

Offutt's origional voice echoes from the Kentucky hills.

In an authentic voice from the hills of Eastern Kentucky, Offutt tells of the people who leave home, but can't quite leave the hills behind. Men who long to go home, but can not or who long to leave and need to stay. His bare-boned prose looks us straight in the eye and doesn't blink. Offutt has proven himself a remarkably versatile writer with Out of the Woods, his second collection of short stories--the first being Kentucky Straight--following a memoir (The Same River Twice) and a novel (The Good Brother). We can only hope that he continues to provide us with more.

Superb, evocative, simple, direct stories

Chris Offutt newest collection of short stories reach directly to the heart of loneliness, displacement, searching for place. His writing is so deceptively simple. It's as if he sat on a stump in the afternoon sun, down in a hollow somewhere, and just scratched out these wonderful tales with a #2 pencil on a piece of construction paper. They seem effortless, which indicates how much effort and care went into them. Surprising how much he reminds me of Larry Brown, but is unique. He's got a gift for storytelling, and avoids those ambiguous endings that are too much the vogue. You know where you are, you know where the characters stand. As a Kentuckian who lives in New York, I know he's got the voice and the feelings dead right.

Sharp, thrilling

Chris Offutt is a great short-story writer. You come out of a story of his thinking you have just read something small and simple, and it isn't until some time later that you realize what you've really been shown: a true emotional panorama, drawn with the most clear and efficient of lines; a sort of semantic loaves-and-fishes, where a comprehensive truth has been packed into an impossibly small space. Offutt has got a highly selective, quietly explosive palette; words you use a hundred times a day are coiled into powerfully emotive combinations. His characters are tack-sharp and of few words, and when they speak they seem to do it with the weight of heroes. Offutt's written a lot of good things, but the short story is presently where he's at his most powerful, and some of his best are in "Out of the Woods," particularly the title story, and "Melungeons," and "Tough People."