Out of the woods, Chris Offutt

Chris Offut’s characters often had to leave their Kentucky hills and woods, because nothing changes much there and everything is always the same, while others stayed there for the very same reasons, a deep sense of belonging rooted in those woods. His dialogs from people of few words are dense with all that is not said, pruning out all the obvious and concentrating on deeper meaning and cultural traits coming from the first settlers like the folk hero Daniel Boone to the white Indians nearly gone native.

Possessed by a fate bigger than themselves that nearly crashes them, the fate of the ordinary people, they drive trucks, do their time, and generally try to get along in a world with no mercy.

Since my social life was tied to the Pig, I was surprised when a man came to the house one Saturday afternoon. That it was Tarvis surprised me even more. He’s from eastern Kentucky, and people often mentioned him, but we’d never met. His hair was short and his beard was long. I invited him.
“Thank ye, no,” he said.
I understood that he knew I was just being polite, that he wouldn’t enter my house until my welcome was genuine. I stepped outside, deliberately leaving the door open. What happened next was a ritual the likes of which I’d practically forgotten, but once it began, felt like going home with an old girlfriend you happened to meet in a bar.

Out of the woods (edition Simon & Schuster, 2000, 176 pages), written by Chris Offutt (Lexington, Kentucky, 1958), American writer who also wrote episodes for the TV series True Blood and Weeds.