The author had me hooked the minute I began to read this book with the character of Tucker. Coming home from the Korean War Tucker is making his way back through the hills of Kentucky. He is remembering back to his time in the war, but also his time before he left the mountains. He begins to remember the mountains and the things he learned before he left. The sights the sounds, reasons the animals or birds leave. It is on his journey home when comes across a scene that he knows is wrong and steps in. By saving Rhonda he is also finding his wife and they begin a life together. Not one filled with glamour but just the two of them and their children. He is a bootlegger and a good one. Everything changes though when a bureaucrat wants to take their handicap children away. The mountain people have their own justice and Tucker deals with it his own way, with that man and with his boss that he runs shine for. The story has from the beginning to the end, the characters good or bad you get a feel for and you are wondering all the way to the ending what will happen. An excellent book and one that I would read again just for the enjoyment. Very much worth the read.

The only reason Country Dark even pinged my radar was because of David Joy. Since Mr. Joy can’t churn out books at the one-per-month rate I’d like him to, I’ve been picking up his recommendations from time-to-time instead. What can I say about this one???? Well . . . . . much like Mary Poppins, it was practically perfect in every way.

If you’re not a fan of “hick lit” I can’t say this will be the one that changes your mind. But if you are? Boy are you missing out if you haven’t already added this to the TBR. Don’t let the title scare you off either. While there is certainly some darkness to this story (one of the opening scenes is of a girl nearly getting raped) – it isn’t pitch black. It’s simply a story that spans the end of the Korean War to the ‘70s about family and doing whatever it takes to provide for them while living in rural Kentucky at the time . . . .

“The Tuckers were a good bunch with bad luck, same as a lot of hill families.”

Sadly, since this is not “the next Gone Girl” it wasn’t released with a mass market campaign, movie options and a gazillion advanced copy push. Unlike all of those so-called next-best-things, THIS story might actually be one of the best you’ll read.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley

You don’t need complicated, complex language to write a stunning work of fiction and this book is proof. Written in spare, simple prose, Country Dark is an example of a masterful character study of both place and people. Set in the backcountry of Kentucky, the “hollers”, where the poorest of the poor mountain people live, the novel focuses on Tucker and his wife Rhonda, the hardships they must endure, but above all their simple and unquestionable love for each other.

Tucker does what he must in order to survive his environment and provide for his family. He is willing to go to great lengths to ensure their safety. He is instinctually smart and knows the countryside like the back of his hand. Some of the most mesmerizing and memorable passages involve his connection to nature and his uncanny ability to track, feed himself, read signs invisible to everyone else, and distinguish the slightest change in his surroundings.

One can’t help but love Tucker despite some of the actions he feels forced to take. He’s been to war and he’s been to prison, and as he simply observes “War and prison had taught him that sides didn’t really exist, that everyone was eventually caught in the middle of something.”

This is a quiet, bleak, aptly named novel that feels authentic to the core. There is little doubt that Chris Offutt has intimate knowledge of the Appalachian foothills and its inhabitants, which shines on every page. I could not recommend it highly enough!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing a copy of the book.

Great book. A dark, compelling Southern Gothic novel, beautifully written with great humanity, deeply moving, with authentic characterisation and dialogue, and a vivid sense of time and place. A young man, Tucker, comes home from the Korean War. A chance meeting with the teenage Rhonda sets the course of the rest of his life. I don’t want to say anything more about the storyline, as this is very much a book to come to without any prior knowledge of what happens. I loved it and look forward to reading more form this supremely talented writer.

So much to love in these few pages, Tucker being the main thing. He's a Korean War veteran, hitching a ride home, saving a girl from being raped by her uncle and then marrying her, making a life for them and their children by boot legging. The writing is spare but still manages descriptions that give you all the visuals you need to imagine their small house in backwoods Kentucky, the wooded setting, the ruts in the road leading through the hills, and all the struggles endured. You see the good in Tucker as well as the bad. The bad gets him into trouble, and the good saves his hide time and time again. After all, he goes off only when he needs to protect himself or his loved ones. I can't say I agree with some of the things he did but he knew how to survive (in Korea, in prison, and in the hills) and did it well, better than most.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

This was an excellent read, spanning decades and encompassing challenges and tragedies weathered as well as can be expected from a moonshine runner and a woman married early in life. A Korean War vet makes his way back home and along the way, rescues a young girl from her sheriff uncle, hellbent on raping her in the boonies.

Tucker is a tough man with many survival skills and a quiet danger about him. His wife is strong, yet fragile, making her way through life the best she can while her husband is out paying dues for his less than honorable boss.

Though their life doesn't come out perfect, with many losses and sadness, their commitment to each other and especially Tucker's commitment to his family, demonstrates the mountain loyalty to family and the grittiness they'll endure for those things they deem worth it.

I don't even know where to start with reviewing this book and since I can't quote the whole book to you....just know

THIS. BOOK. IS. PERFECTION.

Not enough stars exist for rating it the amount I loved it.





Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

Country Dark turns out to be just what it claims to be - high-octane, high-quality country noir, Chris Offutt does a great job of condensing character, action, and description sometimes all in a sentence or paragraph. This serves to keep the action moving, a big part of the particular story he’s chosen to tell. Tucker, the protagonist, lives by his own moral code, which - unfortunately, at times - includes murdering other people. That’s a somewhat less likable character trait in a protagonist who’s otherwise admirably taciturn and free of vanity. In the backwoods of Kentucky, his story plays out over the span of several years. Offutt also meanders at times from close 3rd person with Tucker to inhabiting other characters, major and minor alike, but returning to Tucker eventually. The novel reads quickly, though I resisted racing through it, as I was bewitched by the narrative and Offutt’s power with words. Great book!

All of Chris Offutt’s strengths are on display in “Country Dark”, the Kentucky native’s long awaited return to the novel. From the opening, Offutt’s takes the reader on an unpredictable mythic journey.

Offutt’s unique and varied career has led from the publication of his first story collection, “Kentucky Straight” in 1992, on through to a memoir about Rowan County, a comic book with Michael Chabon, screenplays for True Blood and Weeds, and now his second novel.

It’s rewarding as a reader to come across a true writing gem. I’ve personally pursued a varied reading list in recent months, from the stylistic refinement of Claire Messud’s two popular novels, “The Last Life” and “The Emperor’s Children”, to several novels by emerging writers, complete with their wandering habits and forced turns of phrase.

So it was surprising, to say the least, how effortlessly I breezed through Offutt’s novel about a Korean War veteran returning to his Kentucky home place. The sustained excellence of the prose is reminiscent of my experience reading “Blood Meridian”, and that is not praise I offer lightly.

From the opening, our hero, Tucker, is travelling on foot across rural Kentucky. He ditched the train, having grown tired of the bravado and chaos of the soldiers returning home, and experiences the natural beauty of his home state first hand. A refreshing change from the Korean battle zone.

Offutt spends some time immersing the reader in the natural landscape, but it is never overdone. This is a skill Offutt repeats time and again throughout the narrative.

Tucker is a hardscrabble young man, evidenced by his desire to get further off the worn path, traversing the Kentucky hillsides, sleeping in the open, finding shelter from a storm. About the time he eats a snake for dinner and swims as naked as Adam in a fresh country pond, the reader may start to wonder just where the story is going.

Things change suddenly when Tucker confronts a moment of violence that forever changes his life. Along the way, he meets up with a young woman, Rhonda, who will become his wife as the novel progresses.

The story of Tucker and Rhonda hints at archetypal Greek mythology, from the wandering challenges of Jason or Odysseus, to the gut-wrenching tragedy of Medea, but never does Offutt’s telling of the story become trite. Indeed, it is the writing itself, and the timely placement of action-reaction-consequence, which makes the novel an excellent read.

The author places just enough hints of side or back-story to keep the reader moving, but never does Offutt get lost. Much like Homer, he keeps our hero moving forward, with the reader having to guess the final reward. Side characters such as a country nurse facing sexist violence or a buffoon character trying to be taken seriously for his braggadocio entertain without displacing one’s focus.

The novel is broken into several time periods that progress across decades, but never do we lose touch with Tucker’s drive to do what’s right within the context of his reality. Yes, he runs moonshine for what amounts to a crime lord. Yes, he kills and does time and kills again, but he loves his troubled children and his suffering wife and the life he’s been burdened with, unquestionably.

In the end, however, it’s Offutt’s writing skill that carries the fiction. He breaks just enough narrative rules to prove to the reader that he knows them. He moves effortlessly in cinematic style from one point of view to another, but never displaces Tucker as the center of attention. Indeed, I found it refreshing to know, exactly, what another character in a scene was thinking and as a reader had no trouble moving back and forth across mindsets.

Offutt’s use of lyrical imagery combined with current thematic notions of misuse of power, mental illness and extreme poverty will keep any reader engaged in this tightly constructed story.

Country Dark
Book Review | 📚📚📚📚 4/5
Chris Offutt | Grove Press


Country Dark, by Chris Offutt, contains a series of unfortunate incidents that revolve around one protagonist who lives in rural Kentucky. The book makes for a grit lit novel that offers escape and hope, if you’re a loving badass.

Why I was interested in this book:
I am very drawn to Grit Lit. In part because I live in rural Kentucky. In part because the conflicts that arise are not typical of mainstream contemporary fiction. Country Dark seemed to also offer loving, caring and empathetic characters.

My assessment:
This book falls into the John Steinbeck category. It comes across as a simple story, but there is so much complexity that you will miss if you don’t pay attention. Tucker, the main character, comes to survival naturally. Naturally, as in with ease, and naturally, as it pertains to nature. A MacGyver of sorts, he has great self-control. It’s the external lack of control that gets him in those awkward situations.

I found the symbolism of the birds referenced in the book intriguing, but unfortunately, I was not able to draw the connections of the birds to Tucker’s life. It might be me, but I really did try to figure that out.

This is the first book I read by Offutt, and I suspect it won’t be the last. He keeps good company; like he’s part of a club that includes Ron Rash, David Joy, and Mark Powell.

Stories of the human condition:
Offutt wrote the characters in a way that you could almost forgive them all for their shortcomings. Well, some more than others. There were a couple of S.O.B.s that got what they deserved. But he truly captured the innocence of the Appalachian folk. Tucker had a respect for other people and other forms of life. “Hornets had a right to live.” Sums the book up very well.

Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from www.NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review. I would not have requested this book, had I not been interested in reading and reviewing it. Thanks, NetGalley.

TAGS:
#GritLit #review-book #book review #CountryDark #ChrisOffutt #NetGalley #GrovePress #TuggleGrassBlues #Tuggle Grass Reviews #TuggleGrassReviews

"I got one last little bit of trouble to take care of." Set in rural Kentucky, this is a spare, character-driven novel about a young man. Tucker is a gentle, loving and protective family man. He and his wife Rhonda marry as teenagers in 1954, immediately after meeting. They rapidly have 6 children, four of whom have severe physical or mental developmental problems. Mostly things just happen to Tucker. The only acts he seems capable of planning are violent ones. He's a sympathetic character, but you can certainly have conflicted feelings about him. He just falls into his job as driver for a bootlegger because he happens to have bought the right kind of car. He marries Rhonda because he happens to rescue her from an assault as he is passing by on his way home from the Korean War. Killing people just seems like a reasonable solution to his difficulties. Rhonda starts out as a shrewd 14 year old but appears to regress over the years and become more childlike as guilt and depression over her children wear her down. The epilogue is simplistic and unnecessary and I recommend not reading it. It's also unbelievable. Have they not heard of fingerprint evidence in Kentucky in the 1970s? Tucker was a believable character, the book was well written and isn't afflicted by the testosterone fueled posturing that annoys me in a lot of rural noir novels. I would read more by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Oh my! I just finished this and am breathless. What a wonderful wonderful book! I may have a new favorite author. I will definitely be reading his other works ASAP. You must read this if only for the incredible prose. Offutt is a highly skilled writer with a fascinating story to tell about a family in Appalachia. I could swear I’ve been in the forested hills, hollers and creeks and know the people in the story like family. His prose was so evocative. I couldn’t put it down. I would give it six stars if I could.

I highly recommend this for anyone with a heart and a love of great storytelling.

Note: I received an advance copy of the ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was a dark and rather depressing book, but the descriptive writing made it hard to put down. The descriptions of characters and surroundings were complex without being overwhelming. I could practically see and feel the countryside - though I've never been there.

The poetic writing makes this a 4 star book for me.

<blockquote><i>Tucker had missed the sheer expanse of sky at night, the tiny cluster of seven sisters, Orion's sword, and the drinking gourd that aimed north. The moon was a gibbous, barely there, as if chewed away. The sky stretched black in every direction. Clouds blocked the stars, lending an unfathomable depth to the air. The tree line was gone and hilltops blended with the black tapestry of night. It was country dark. He closed his eyes, feeling safe."</i></blockquote>

I love the way that Chris Offutt describes the night time sky of his home in Kentucky. His descriptive language creates the framework; his use of simile colors in the landscape making the backwoods and its people come alive.

<i>"The lack of a weapon troubled him in a distant way, like an amputee who'd lost a limb."
"Rain running off the hillside had left a series of gullies in the road like giant corduroy, jarring the car."
"Her eyelashes fluttered like the dainty wings of a black butterfly."</i>

In <u>Country Dark</u> we meet Tucker a young veteran returning home from the Korean War. Not quite 18 - he lied about his age to enter the Army - Tucker has seen and experienced a lot in his young life. His is a dynamic character that dwells within the gray area of the bad boy protagonist. He is a bootlegger with an abiding sense of family who will do whatever it takes to protect them.

This is my first time reading this author. I picked up this book as there was much sensation surrounding its release. Chris Offutt is known for his memoirs and short story collections set in rural Appalachia. Some of his more notable works include <u>Son of a Pornographer</u>, <u>Kentucky Straight</u> and <u>The Same River Twice</u>.

<u>Country Dark</u> is Appalachian noir at its best.

A Southern gothic story about family, love, and the sacrifices you'll make to protect both. Shifting points of view happen from sentence to sentence but it's easy to move along with it.

A writer I enjoy mentioned how authentically Chris Offutt wrote about the hills and the people from the hills of Kentucky. The book never feels patronizing nor does it ever feel like there's a judgement being made on the characters or their actions. While I can't judge the authenticity, there's never a false note that ever popped out to me.

I do think the book felt short, almost novella like despite being over 200 pages. As a novel it seems like there were parts that could have used more padding. The ending where each character gets a what happened later in life blurb does have a feeling like it could have been a more fleshed out part of the book that the author didn't want to commit into writing. There were also flashes of something more within the story for characters that just never took off. As much as I enjoyed the book, I just wish it were more fleshed out.

3.5/5 rounds to 4/5.

I was surprised how much I liked this book because this is not my normal reading choice. i am completely unfamiliar with backwoods Kentucky and the Appalachia area, but the author did an amazing job describing the era, characters and setting of the book. That's what really made it a really good read. Tucker, the main character, is an army vet who has just come home, ready to establish himself with a wife, family and life outside of military service. He meets Rhonda, they marry and have kids. Tucker becomes involved in shine running and eventually gets sent to prison. I would use the word EPIC to describe this amazing book because it covers multi-generations of a family, their lives, choices good and bad, and the consequences faced because of the choices they make. I really enjoyed this one very much! Great author, great writing, interesting setting, story and characters! Highly recommend it!

This is indeed appropriately titled- it's dark and it's gritty= but it's also well written. You will find yourself rooting for Tucker and Rhonda despite some very bad choices. But are they choices? Do Tucker and Rhonda have many options in rural Kentucky in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s? This is the underbelly of the American dream. Offutt clearly knows his subjects and his audience. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

3.5, rounding up. I enjoyed the book though it was tough read because the life of the main characters was so grim.

The setting: "Tucker, a young veteran [Korean War], returns from war to work for a bootlegger." He meets his wife, Rhonda, when he picks her up as a hitchhiker. They marry shortly afterwards and and she has a child almost annually--five--before she's thirty. All, save one, have issues [including hydrocephaly]. There's a social worker, but... [that's another part of the story].

It's a story of bootlegging, poverty, love, and more.

Tucker becomes a shine-runner in backwoods Kentucky where there are social codes for the hills. He serves a prison term to take a fall for his boss [much in prison]. And, the story builds.

Some wonderful descriptions:

"Rhonda's dark eyes had brows that lay along her face like embroidery."

"The tree line was gone and hilltops blended wth the black tapestry of night. It was country dark."

"By age eight, boys in the hills spent all their time outside while women stayed indoors unless they wree gardening of killing a chicken. Maybe that's why women lived longer. Or maybe he had it backwards and men lived shorter."

"His brain was a dam missing a river."

"Creases lined her face like old bark."

I recommend this book because it took me to an unfamiliar place and was a well-written story.

Kentucky, Killing, and KAOS (chaos). You will be pulled inside the mind of a veteran, America, and of rural people pushed to their limits. Loved it

4 gritty stars for Dark Country. I'm not usually one for character driven narratives but the author did a wonderful job of taking the reader into the bowels of the back woods of Kentucky. We meet Tucker, a war veteran, who has only a couple hundred bucks to his name and no close family to speak of. He's returning to his home in the Kentucky hills, in search of a wife, and with hopes of settling into a normal existence. The book primarily focuses on his years postwar and the struggles he encounters living in rural Kentucky..

I empathized with Tucker. His way of life was so well portrayed that I completely understood him. Although flawed, he was a likeable character and the heart of the book. I will admit I was captivated by this story. I can't say why exactly except that I didn't know where it was going and that was certainly part of the draw. I also found the descriptions of rural Kentucky and the folks living in that part of the state to be fascinating. The characters are well developed, which fully engages the reader.

It is definitely a GRITTY read and I liked that too! There's violence mixed with a growing tension as the story unfolds. I was utterly captivated until the very end. I enjoyed this author's writing style. I will probably try more of his books. Definitely recommend this read to folks looking for a gritty character driven drama.