No Heroes - by Chris Offutt (Paperback)

About the Book

After an absence of 20 years, Offutt returned to Kentucky to teach at his alma mater, and to become, quietly, a hero of sorts. But as present-day realities collide with memory, Offutt realizes that he is searching for a home that no longer exists.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Chicago Tribune Offutt...is a shot of Kentucky bourbon, a writer whose distillations of life are spare and pure and breathtaking.

The Seattle Times Offutt's gift to readers is substantial.

Janet Maslin The New York Times Captivating...Offutt is a wonderful raconteur, sharp-eyed and self-effacingly funny.

About the Author

Chris Offutt, author of the critically acclaimed story collections Kentucky Straight and Out of the Woods, the novel The Good Brother, and the memoir The Same River Twice, lives in Iowa City, Iowa.