The Good Brother: A Novel (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
There were parts of this book I absolutely loved, and then, there were parts that were just good. I loved the first section of the book. I loved it because it was familiar to me -- good ol' hillbillies talking, working, living. The dialogue was so vivid. Then section two comes along and the characters aren't familiar anymore, and they don't talk as much (and they are criminally insane and somewhat unlikeable). Then, near the end is another glimmer of great dialogue among familiar people.This book is about a man who has never had to be his own person, just lived in the shadow of his older brother. He has to begin making decisions for himself, some really tough decisions, and then has to deal with the consequences. I was curious why Offutt sent his character into the snake nest of home-grown, anti-American, militia men. Was it just to contrast with the good simple people he left? Or did Offutt encounter these people in his own adventure away from the KY hills?This book has a lot of guns in it, a lot of hate, a lot of crazy, and one great central character that remains moral and thoroughly likeable through it all.
I really liked this book until it got very heavy handed with the pro-militia vs. anti-militia debate in the second half of the book. Although the dialog of those debates seemed realistic, and even fit the context that Offutt established, it still seemed to turn the book into an excuse to debate the topic. The beginning of the book was just great in how it set up the inevitability of Virgil’s task. I particularly liked how everyone kept coming at him letting him know what he had to do. And even better was the way he did it on his own terms; that was a nice touch for deepening the character-based conflicts. The middle part of the book with its themes of identity and belonging and alienation worked quite well also. And even the militia stuff is tied into the book’s main theme by raising the question of belonging. The writing is incredibly beautiful at times. As in his short stories, he seems to excel at merging states of mind with the setting, where external details seem in sync with the psychological state of the characters.
What do You think about The Good Brother: A Novel (1998)?
This book would have had a 5 star rating if its ending had including some sort of closure. Guess I should have pursued my degree in Psychology, can't I use my imagination?! The intimate view into such a rural life, and all that comes with that, was an eye opener (how much of this was fiction, I don't know, but who am I to judge?). Without having anything in common with the main character I was able to relate to him, on what seemed a deeply personal level. I found his disposition calming and profound, not despite his simplicity, but because of it. The other characters were believable, honest and also simple but in confusing ways. Not a single character was unbelievable though. I wish the time frame had been spelled out slightly more clearly, but then again, I suppose that would have seemed jarring in a storyline so soft around the edges (despite its rough content!). My time slipped away too easily reading this...and I mean that as a compliment!
—Meg
I love Chris Offutt, though I'm mostly familiar with his short fiction. He has an uncanny ability to use detail to his advantage and harness it to the perspective of a given character. Maybe the issue here is that the protagonist "locales" twice--once in Kentucky, where everything comes as natural as could be; then he makes a play to be a Montanan, to mixed results. The amount of blue-sky-swagger in the last third of the book is really too much to handle. Offutt does it well; he's amazing at writing--which is an awesome thing. But I felt as if I'd been mailed a sequence of existential postcards from out west, each gorgeous and meaningful--in some far-away reality that had nothing to do with the book, other than the story was still going. I don't know... if this review is confusing, it's because I liked the premise so much that I felt developmentally arrested by the end.
—Brian
