The story rollicks from 1964 to 1971, careening downhill. There is a fantastic climax, a satisfying resolution. And Country Dark is audacious without seeming so at all. Routinely shifting points of view, Offutt accesses feelings and tones within tense and complicated moments with playful alacrity ... 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 ... This is the Chris Offutt book I’ve been waiting for — an achievement of spellbinding momentum and steadfast heart.
You expect descriptions like this to be accompanied by eerie banjo plucking from Deliverance. But Mr. Offutt impressively inhabits this impoverished, fiercely private world without condescension or romance, fashioning a lean, atmospheric story that moves fluidly between the extremes of violence and love ... The rumblings of Southern Gothic horror are audible in the distance of Country Dark, but Mr. Offutt is such a measured and unexcitable stylist that the story never wallows in the grotesque.
Tucker is a true existential hero, facing his circumscribed world directly and acting with unflinching determination. His story, like the work of Daniel Woodrell, is both heartrendingly painful and unsentimentally uplifting.
While Country Dark, a tale of family loyalty and violence in the hills of Kentucky, does not measure up to past efforts, it’s still a slick bit of backwoods devilry ... Tense and atmospheric, Country Dark is firmly rooted in time and place, with the verisimilitude expected from a writer who has made the shadowy hills of Kentucky his own.
Offutt, who grew up in a small town in eastern Kentucky, has a native's instinct for the region and its inhabitants. His descriptions of the natural environment are vivid and yet understated ... Country Dark is a taut, well-constructed novel easily consumed in one sitting. There are villains aplenty, a deeply flawed protagonist but, in the end, only survivors.
Offutt has a fine ear for Kentucky-speak and is able to make small shifts in vocabulary that capture the rhythms of rural conversation. And Tucker is a knotty and complex character—warm and loving toward his family but cold and threatening toward almost everyone else. A compelling and brooding read.
Offutt’s exceptional new novel brings to light with gritty, heartfelt precision what one character, a social worker, calls the 'two Kentuckys, east and west, dirt and blacktop' ... Offutt’s prose cuts deep and sharp, but Tucker and Rhonda remain somewhat mechanical, despite the nuance of the language used to describe them. The novel, however, is an undeniable testament to the importance and clarity of Offutt’s voice in contemporary American literature.
