From the critically acclaimed author of the novel The Good Brother and memoir My Father the Pornographer comes the unforgettable memoir No Heroes. “If you haven’t read Chris Offutt, you’ve missed an accomplished and compelling writer” (Chicago Tribune). In his fortieth year, Chris Offutt returns to his alma mater, Morehead State University, the only four-year school in the Kentucky hills. He envisions leading the modest life of a teacher and father. Yet present-day reality collides painfully with memory, leaving Offutt in the midst of an adventure he never imagined: the search for a home that no longer exists. Interwoven with this bittersweet homecoming tale are the wartime stories of Offutt’s parents-in-law, Arthur and Irene. An unlikely friendship develops between the eighty-year-old Polish Jew and the forty-year-old Kentucky hillbilly as Arthur and Offutt share comfort in exile, reliving the past at a distance. With masterful prose, Offutt combines these disparate accounts to create No Heroes, a profound meditation on family, home, the Holocaust, and history.
Kentucky straight is bourbon with no mixer. Kentucky Straight is Kentucky seen without nostalgic gloss. These riveting, often heartbreaking stories, take us through country that is unmapped. They are set in a nameless Appalachian 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; where hunting is not a sport but a means of survival. These are stories of coal miners and backwoods medicine men, of gamblers and marijuana farmers, tales of real tragedy and unutterable strangeness that convey their sense of place so vividly that we feel its ground rise beneath our feet. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.
In this blistering return to Chris Offutt’s acclaimed crime series, Mick Hardin is tested like never before as familial allegiances and old wounds collide, threatening to destroy everything he loves With his signature crackling prose, literary master Chris Offutt has staked out his own territory in crime fiction, a place of familial allegiances, old wounds, and revenge—the code of the hills. His new book, a sharp, twisty southern noir with echoes of James Sallis and Daniel Woodrell, will force Mick to face up to the way of life he thought he’d escaped. Mick Hardin is supposed to be retired, transitioning to civilian life. Back in the hills of Kentucky after a two-year absence, he’d planned to touch down briefly before heading to France, marking the end of his twenty-year Army career. But in Rocksalt, trouble is brewing. Mick’s sister Linda, recently reelected as sheriff, and her deputy Johnny Boy Tolliver are investigating the murder of Pete Lowe, a sought-after mechanic at the local racetrack. Mick doesn’t want to get involved—he wants to say his goodbyes and get out of Dodge. But when he reluctantly agrees to intervene in a family dispute requiring a light touch, he uncovers evidence of an illegal cockfighting ring and another body, somehow linked to the first. And then, Linda steps into harm’s way, leaving Mick to solve the crimes himself. Code of the Hills is a harrowing novel of family—of what we’re willing to do to protect and avenge the ones we love.
From the critically acclaimed author of the novel The Good Brother and memoir My Father the Pornographer comes the unforgettable memoir No Heroes. “If you haven’t read Chris Offutt, you’ve missed an accomplished and compelling writer” (Chicago Tribune). In his fortieth year, Chris Offutt returns to his alma mater, Morehead State University, the only four-year school in the Kentucky hills. He envisions leading the modest life of a teacher and father. Yet present-day reality collides painfully with memory, leaving Offutt in the midst of an adventure he never imagined: the search for a home that no longer exists. Interwoven with this bittersweet homecoming tale are the wartime stories of Offutt’s parents-in-law, Arthur and Irene. An unlikely friendship develops between the eighty-year-old Polish Jew and the forty-year-old Kentucky hillbilly as Arthur and Offutt share comfort in exile, reliving the past at a distance. With masterful prose, Offutt combines these disparate accounts to create No Heroes, a profound meditation on family, home, the Holocaust, and history.
From the critically acclaimed author of the novel The Good Brother and memoir My Father the Pornographer, Same River Twice is the second volume from an American literary star. “If you haven't read Chris Offutt, you've missed an accomplished and compelling writer” (Chicago Tribune). At the age of nineteen, Chris Offutt had already been rejected by the army, the Peace Corps, the park rangers, and the police. So he left his home in the Kentucky Appalachians and thumbed his way north—into a series of odd jobs and even stranger encounters with his fellow Americans. Fifteen years later, Offutt finds himself in a place he never thought he’d be: settled down with a pregnant wife. Writing from the banks of the Iowa River, where he came to rest, he intersperses the story of his youthful journeys with that of his journey to fatherhood in a memoir that is uniquely candid, occasionally brutal, and often wonderfully funny. As he reckons with the comforts and terrors of maturity, Offutt finally discovers what is best in life and in himself.
Army cop-turned-small-town-investigator Mick Hardin returns to Appalachia in this propulsive thriller from the award-winning author of The Killing Hills. Mick Hardin is an Army CID officer home on leave, recovering from an IED attack and flirting with prescription painkillers, when a body is found in the center of town. It’s Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard. But when Barney’s mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it seems there’s more to the killing than it seems. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers, and getting out of town—and most of all, staying out of the way of his sister’s reelection as Sheriff—but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he’s getting shot at himself. A dark, pacy crime novel about grief and revenge, and the surprises hidden below the surface, Shifty’s Boys is a tour de force that confirms Mick Hardin as one of the most appealing new investigators in fiction. Praise for The Killing Hills “[A] work of rural noir whose characters’ singular codes lead to constant surprises.” —The Wall Street Journal “Dark, but deeply humane. The love in this book is deep and powerful. And winsome twinkles shine through the blackness throughout, thanks in no small part to Offutt’s keen ear and eye.” —The New York Times “Sense of place also steams off the pages . . . Pitch-perfect in its tone and dialogue, if more interested in mood than in the business of plot, this is what Jack Reacher wants to be when it grows up.” —The Times [UK]
From the critically acclaimed author of the collection Kentucky Straight and memoir My Father the Pornographer, The Good Brother is the finely crafted debut novel from a talent the New York Times calls “a fierce writer”. Virgil Caudill has never gone looking for trouble, but this time he's got no choice—his hell-raising brother Boyd has been murdered. Everyone knows who did it, and in the hills of Kentucky, tradition won’t let a murder go unavenged. No matter which way he chooses, Virgil will lose. The Good Brother is the story of a man’s struggle to find his real self in the wake of an impossible choice. Traversing the American landscape from the hollows of Eastern Kentucky to the plains of Montana, Offutt explores the hunger for belonging that drives our most passionate beliefs, and in the process shows himself to be one of our most powerful storytellers.
The author characterizes this book as a "docu-story". As such, it is an exceptionally well-researched and skillfully written chronology of the history of Russia, the Soviet Union and the cold War. The work is unusual and unique. It is unusual because unlike most books of an historical nature, it is free-flowing and not tightly structured. It is unique because it is written with considerable input from the author's personal experiences interwoven with perceptions and anecdotal observations. The work is Assertive: "I have no doubt that there was Cold War. I fought in it." (The Author); Candid: "Stalin is an unconscionable dictator, but I liked the little son-of-a-bitch." (Truman); Provocative: "Truman is worthless." (Stalin); and Challenging: "Why not set a goal just between the two of us let's find a practical way to solve our critical issues." (Reagan) and "we can set a specific agenda for how to straighten-out Soviet-American relations." (Gorbachev). Finally, it is Cautionary: "The world has become in many respects a safer place Unfortunately, it is also still a dangerous place, fraught with uncertainty." (Commander-in-Chief, US Strategic Command) and: "The missile force is in the same state of readiness as ten years ago. My men and my missiles are always ready." (General of the Army, Igor Sergeyev, Republic of Russia.)
From the critically acclaimed author of the novel The Good Brother and memoir My Father the Pornographer, Out of the Woods is Chris Offutt’s fiercely original short story collection the New York Times calls “a magical book”. Arriving seven years after Offutt’s debut collection Kentucky Straight, Out of the Woods returns a masterly writer to the form which garnered him not only critical praise but many prestigious awards. Offutt, who “draws landscape and constructs dialogue with the eyes and ears of a native son” (The Miami Herald), is on strong home turf here, capturing those who have left the Kentucky hills and long to return. These nine stories of gravediggers and drifters, gamblers and truck drivers a long way from home, are tales so full of hard edges they can't help but tell some hard truths.
Kentucky straight is bourbon with no mixer. Kentucky Straight is Kentucky seen without nostalgic gloss. These riveting, often heartbreaking stories, take us through country that is unmapped. They are set in a nameless Appalachian 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; where hunting is not a sport but a means of survival. These are stories of coal miners and backwoods medicine men, of gamblers and marijuana farmers, tales of real tragedy and unutterable strangeness that convey their sense of place so vividly that we feel its ground rise beneath our feet. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.
A veteran on leave investigates a murder in his Kentucky backwoods hometown in this Appalachian noir by the acclaimed author of Country Dark. Mick Hardin, a combat veteran and Army CID agent, is home on a leave to be with his pregnant wife—but they aren’t getting along. His sister, newly risen to sheriff, has just landed her first murder investigation—but local politicians are pushing for someone else to take the case. Maybe they think she can’t handle it. Or maybe their concerns run deeper. With his experience and knowledge of the area, Mick is well-suited to help his sister investigate while staying under the radar. Now he’s dodging calls from his commanding officer as he delves into the dangerous rivalries lurking beneath the surface of his fiercely private hometown. And he needs to talk to his wife. The Killing Hills is a novel of betrayal within and between the clans that populate the hollers—and the way it so often shades into violence. Chris Offutt has delivered a dark, witty, and absolutely compelling novel of murder and honor, with an investigator-hero unlike any in fiction.
This is an autobiographical work describing a young boy growing up in the most humble surroundings where the entire family worked to maintain the most basic lifestyle. He went on to work his way during and after high school in the Texas oil fields in order to enroll in college. With a quest to fly, fly he did with the U.S. Air Force, in B-36 and B-52 bombers during the Cold War, eventually becoming a senior commander, rising to the grade of Major General and Chief of Staff, Strategic Air Command. Recruited out of the Air Force to accept an appointment as Associate Director, Los Alamos Nat'l Laboratory and later becoming a business executive and on to managing the recovery of the degraded local and long-distance communications systems in Post-Cold War Russia onward, creating eleven published works, including this in depth autobiographical personal experience journey, which includes substantial factual historical events. Enjoy!
The author characterizes the book as a memoir, entitled, Notable Encounters. As such, he has diligently documented his recollection of dozens of memorable special people that he enjoyed the unique opportunity of meeting over the years of his professional experiences. Many of the names of those whom he had the pleasure of meeting are easily recognized, while others are introduced to the reader for the first time. Beyond identifying and characterizing his meeting opportunities and the interaction with those encountered, he has for the benefit of the reader, provided an in-depth biographical background summary of each personage. As such, his treatise serves also to recall history, significant times and events in many instances. A number of those whom he had the pleasure of meeting became friends for life, while other introductions were the first and last. An interesting perspective that he also introduces in the opening of his writing is one of the history and importance of the handshake. He characterizes that virtually every encounter, greeting, or meeting between two people is initiated with a handshake. The handshake, a practice that has existed in some form or another for thousands of years, most often engaged upon an initial meeting or greeting. The purpose of clasping hands""to convey trust, respect, balance, and equality. Join Chris Adams in encountering, exchanging handshakes and engaging some noteworthy and incredible personalities along his life's journey.
While much has been written about the Cold War from the political, diplomatic and overall military perspective, very little has been written about the American warriors who fought and won the war. In Deterrence, Adams tells the story of the U.S. leaders, commanders, enlisted men of the U.S. military strategic nuclear forces that successfully defeated the Soviet war machine. This book goes a long way toward telling how and why the United States prevailed in the Cold War." - Keith D. McFarland, PhD, President Emeritus, Texas A&M University Commerce "In this notable work, Chris Adams has not only captured the essence of national security through vigilant deterrence, but clearly recognizes and honors the leaders, commanders, service members and families who played critical roles in the defense of our country." - Lt. General Edgar S. Harris, Jr. USAF, Retired Fmr Vice Commander-in Chief, Strategic Air Command "I had the privilege of serving with General Chris Adams in Strategic Air Command.During those critical years, SAC's charged "Cold Warriors" and their families were at the center of our deterrent force. Herein, Adams captures the critical mission and importance of those whose professional service behind the scenes made it possible to win the Cold War." - Jim McCoy, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, Retired Few Americans recognized or paid close attention to the outset of the Cold War and thereafter its enduring years, mainly because it persisted for so long and few alarming situations intruded their daily lives. Only noteworthy events such as SPUTNIK, the shooting down of Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane and the Cuban Crisis brought the potentially threatening circumstances home, and then only briefly until other news items took their place. America has never fallen short of heroes when called upon for the common defense of the nation and the Cold War period of uncertainty called upon America's best and brightest to respond-national leaders, military commanders and an elite force of warriors trained with the most sophisticated war-fighting equipment U.S. technology could provide to create the strategy and deterrent force that endured.
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