Seven years ago, Chris Offutt made his literary debut with Kentucky Straight, a fiercely original collection that earned him not only critical praise but many prestigious awards.

The eight new stories in Out of the Woods mark Offutt’s return to the form in which he first displayed his astonishing talent. Offutt, who draws landscape and constructs dialogue with the eyes and ears of a native son (The Miami Herald), is on strong home turf here, capturing those who have left the Kentucky hills and long to return. These are stories of gravediggers and drifters, gamblers and truck drivers a long way from home, tales that are so full of hard edges they can’t help but tell some hard truth