Out of the Woods: Stories

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Simon and Schuster, Feb 16, 2016 - Fiction - 176 pages
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.
 

Contents

Melungeons
39
Moscow Idaho
59
TwoEleven All Around
79
High Water Everywhere
91
Barred
117
Target Practice
137
Tough People
157
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About the author (2016)

Chris Offutt grew up in Haldeman, Kentucky, a former mining town of two-hundred people in the Daniel Boone National Forest. He is the author of two memoirs: The Same River Twice and No Heroes; two collections of short stories: Kentucky Straight and Out of the Woods; and one novel, The Good Brother. He has published over eighty stories and essays, including appearances in The New York Times, Esquire, GQ, Playboy, and on National Public Radio. His work is in many textbooks and anthologies such as Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays.
His work received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the NEA, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The international magazine Granta included him in its list of the “Top 20 Young American Writers.” He wrote and produced screenplays for True Blood, Weeds, and Treme, and TV pilots for Fox, Lions Gate, and CBS. A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, he lives in rural Lafayette County near Oxford, Mississippi.

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