It's that red-slipper thing. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." The writer Chris Offutt decided that years after leaving his Kentucky roots, it was time to go back.
So with family in tow, looking forward to a teaching gig at the local college, the boy from Haldeman goes back to the hill country where he grew up, and the entire exercise lasts one year.
Offutt says home isn't where you hang your hat, it's where you hang your head: a place that only ever exists in memory - in self-made myth, a conspiracy of community. Offutt's book "No Heroes" digs into his feelings about going back and leaving again; expectations, disappointments, and guilt, thoughts on home-coming and questions about place and priorities.
