World Famous Comics: No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home
No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home
By: Chris Offutt Publisher: Simon & Schuster Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Simon & Schuster Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 272 Publication Date: March 25, 2003
Product Description: In his fortieth year, Chris Offutt returns to his alma mater, Morehead State University, the only four-year school in the Kentucky hills. He envisions leading the modest life of a teacher and father. Yet present-day reality collides painfully with memory, leaving Offutt in the midst of an adventure he never imagined: the search for a home that no longer exists.
Interwoven with this bittersweet homecoming tale are the wartime stories of Offutt's parents-in-law, Arthur and Irene. An unlikely friendship develops between the eighty-year-old Polish Jew and the forty-year-old Kentucky hillbilly as Arthur and Offutt share comfort in exile, reliving the past at a distance. With masterful prose, Offutt combines these disparate accounts to create No Heroes, a profound meditation on family, home, the Holocaust, and history.
A GOOD READ. VERY INTERESTING. In many ways, this work is more complex than you would first think. Note the various reviews here. This work seems to bring out all sorts of emotions. This work is not easy to review. I suppose the best place to start is to state my humble opinion in reference to a couple of points. First, I don't think that the author was actually "putting down" the good folks in his old home town. I think he was just calling it the way he saw it. I have traveled through this area of the country extensively, spent quite a lot of time there. To be honest, the author nailed a certain segment of the population quite well. Now let me state that I am from and live in the Ozarks is S.W. Missouri. Some of the folks here, myself included, make the people of the author's home down seem down right sophisticated. I have traveled and lived all over this country for more years than I care to admit to. To be quite frank, the people the author described here can be found in just about ever town in the U.S., from coast to coast. Kentucky does not have lock on "town characters." Secondly, the author indeed has some rather harsh things to say about Morehead State University. This was silly on the author's part. Schools are schools. I work with a lot of Harvard and Yale graduates that have far less "education" than a lot of Jr. College drop outs I work with. School is what you make of it after you get out. Those attending this college should not feel bad. After all, the author himself graduated from this "inferior school," made the most of it and seems to have done alright for himself.
Now, as to the book: It is actually rather well written. I do like the author's style. The story was good, easy to follow and simply interesting. This is actually two books in one. The first is about the author and his family returning to the hills of Kentucky to teach and possibly make a difference. The second story is that of his in-laws, both of whom were Holocaust Survivors. At this point I will state that I think it a shame that the author choose to use this method to tell these two stories. Both really should have been extended and made into two separate works.
The author is very, very good ad descriptions, the country, the people the background. The author is quite good a capturing emotions. Chris Offutt is obviously quite a talented writer. I should also note that a few other reviewers have stated that the author made most of the stories here up. I doubt that very much. The stories just ring too true. He may have done a bit of embellishment here and there, but is that not what most authors do?
I am giving this one only four stars rather than five for two reasons. First, there is an element of "sour grapes" that runs through the story which I found unbecoming and secondly, I feel the author should have devoted an entire book to his in-laws and their stories.
I do recommend this one highly. It is a very good read. D. Blankenship
You Can't Go Home Again The author writes about his returning to his home to his eastern Ketucky roots to teach at the local college, and "give back" to his hometown. That part of the book was informative for me since I did not know a whole lot about that part of the world and its people. But, the really intersting part of the book is the parallel story he tells about his mother and father inlaw, who are Holocaust Survivors. That part of the book, which documents his inlaws' survival stories, is especially memorable. Now the fascinating aspect of all of this to me was that the two stories, ie his memoir, and the inlaws' history, have virtually nothing to do with each other. The two stories remain separate throughout the book.
Offutt's style of short concise sentences, and chapters makes for easy reading. His insights into the Appalachian culture are eye opening for us outsiders.
I recommend the book, especially for those who might be considering "going home" to give back. According to Offutt, it isn't easy.
He sounds like a funny and likable guy The book No Heroes suffers from a severe dislocation, when Chris Offutt tries to tell the story of Arthur and Irene, his in-laws, and their shattering Holocaust experiences, but basically giving them short shrift and only a few paragraphs compared to his lengthy tales about encountering old chums, teachers and girlfriends when he returns to teach in the hills of Kentucky.
His little hostage to fortune, Sam, doesn't like school there, so Chris doesn't stay long. In a way it's a shame he wrote this book because it makes nearly every person in the Kentucky hills sound like a moron. He is unforgiving in his characterization. can people really be this small-minded and idiotic? Maybe so, but he isn't doing the Kentucky visitors bureau any favors.
At the same time, he's great at describing things, and the colorful dialect of many of his old Morehead buds will provoke a round of belly laughs, some of their sayings are both priceless and profane. He sounds like a funny and likable guy, except he's a little bit on the preachy side.
Not really a success, but maybe he's written other and better things, I'd read more of him.
longitude and attitude this memoir reads like a journal and seems to square many assumptions the writer went into a larger world to confirm. my own experience: leaving the south, making friends from other cultures, then coming back (for what?) line up almost perfectly with the trajectory of Mr. Offutts story. Progress has been made, work needs to be done. Locals who have problems with this book, I have advice: go and be. Chris is actually doing you a service...
Pathetic Misrepresentation Yes, I am educated enough to spell misrepresentation. I am also a graduate of Morehead State University and soon will have a Masters of Business Administration. Wait it gets better. I also have already obtained an MCSE, MCSA, Dell Certified Technician, A+ Certification, Brainbench Computer Technical Support, ExPert Rating Computer Technical Support, and 17 other professional certifications. Could this be possible? Yes, it is. Morehead State University is a fine institution and there are not as many "hicks" roaming the streets as Mr. Offutt would like to believe. There is no mistaking his imaginative talent and excellent authorship, but his egotistical dreamland is very questionable. I would recommend this great work of FICTION to anyone out there who enjoys a good Kentucky redneck or imbreed joke because you are just as imaginative as Mr. Chris Awful (oops, eye lowst meye diktonary!!!)
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