The Good Brother

Virgil Caudill has never gone looking for trouble, but this time he's got no choice -- his hell-raising brother Boyd has been murdered. Everyone knows who did it, and in the hills of Kentucky, tradition won't let a murder go unavenged. No matter which way he chooses, Virgil will lose.

The Good Brother, Chris Offutt's finely crafted first novel, is the story of Virgil's struggle to find his real self in the wake of an impossible choice. Traversing the American landscape from the hollows of Eastern Kentucky to the plains of Montana, Offutt explores the hunger for belonging that drives our most passionate beliefs, and in the process shows himself to be one of our most powerful storytellers.

Chris Offutt is the author of Kentucky Straight and The Same River Twice. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Fiction Writers. He lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and two sons.