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the good brother BY CHRIS OFFUTT SIMON & SCHUSTER 320 PAGES FICTION BY ROB SPILLMAN Chris Offutt's much-praised previous books, a memoir, "The Same River Twice," and a short story collection, "Kentucky Straight," were steeped in the tough yet playful language born out of Eastern Kentucky's hardscrabble life. Offutt's characters, like William Faulkner's, are of a very specific time and place, but their dramatic lives and stoic acceptance of their fates are pure Greek drama. Now, in his first novel, Offutt sings the epic tragedy of one Virgil Caudell, a hardworking, loyal son whose wild brother Boyd does all of the drinking, fighting and carousing in the family. When Boyd is gunned down, everyone, including the sheriff, knows who is responsible, but nevertheless the entire community expects Virgil to exact revenge. Torn by his love of place and loyalty to his dead brother, Virgil winds up running off to Montana, where he starts his life over with a completely new identity. As Joe, he winters in a remote cabin and befriends native Montanans, a gun-crazy, down-to-earth breed not that different from his fellow Kentuckians -- except that Virgil's new friends display an extreme hatred toward all forms of government. Even the tough single mother he falls for packs high-caliber heat and is preparing to fend off the coming ATF invasion the locals anxiously anticipate. Led by a charismatic Vietnam vet, a loosely formed militia embroils the resistant Virgil in its troubles. And when Virgil's past creeps back up on him, it's an ugly mix of hotheads and guns. Virgil's tale unfolds languorously, allowing Offutt to display his sharp ear for dialogue and turns of idiomatic phrase -- "Education was like a posthole digger, a good tool, very expensive, but worthless unless you needed postholes dug." Offutt's characters are being bypassed by the modern world, their individuality and remoteness encroached on by technology, Range-Roving settlers and the loathed government. Offutt gives these voiceless people rough, roundly textured voices and lets them all -- deluded or wise -- have their say. In the end "The Good Brother" is a classic tale of violence and retribution spawning only more violence and retribution, a centuries-old story powerfully recast by a tremendously gifted storyteller. June 13, 1997 Rob Spillman lives in New York. He is a regular contributor to Salon. BOOKMARK: http://www.salonmagazine.com/sneaks/sneak.html