Kentucky straight is bourbon with no mixer. Kentucky Straight is Kentucky seen without nostalgic gloss. These riveting, often heartbreaking stories, take us through country that is unmapped. They are set in a nameless Appalachian community too small to be called a town, a place where wanting an education is a mark of ungodly arrogance and dowsing for water a legitimate occupation; where hunting is not a sport but a means of survival. These are stories of coal miners and backwoods medicine men, of gamblers and marijuana farmers, tales of real tragedy and unutterable strangeness that convey their sense of place so vividly that we feel its ground rise beneath our feet.
 
Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award. "From the hills and tough as oak, in his best stories Offutt bring to mind D. H. Lawrence, blood-driven and holy. His people have an heroic dignity.”—James Salter
 
“These are wild, tough, magical stories, often as shocking as real life, and every one a heartbreaker. Chris Offutt plainly loves the English language and knows how to make it do wondrous things.”—Josephine Humphreys