The Good Brother A Novel [Paperback]

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 Offuttis the author ofKentucky StraightandThe 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 ofGranta's Best Young American Fiction Writers. He lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and two sons.Chapter 1

Virgil followed the rain branch off the hill and drove to the Blizzard post office. The mail hadn't come yet and he continued past, giving a general wave to the crowd that gossiped in the glare of April sun. He drove up a steep hill to the county line. It was only two miles from the house he'd grown up in, but he'd never crossed it.

He parked by the edge of the cliff. The color of the air was brighter at the top. Clay Creek ran through the hollow with purple milkweed blooming in the ditch. When Virgil was a kid, he and his brother had walked its slippery bank, gathering enough empty pop bottles to buy candy when they reached Blizzard's only store. Virgil wished he and Boyd could do it again but people had stopped throwing pop bottles away when the deposit rose to a nickel. The store closed when the owner died. Boyd was dead now, too.

Virgil tried to imagine the land when it was flat across the hilltops, befol#$