Willy Vlautin

The life he knew before the bomb no longer existed. That Leroy Kervin was gone. Willy Vlautin's stunning fourth novel opens with Leroy, a young, wounded, Iraq veteran, waking to a rare moment of clarity, his senses flooded with the beauty of remembering who he is but the pain of realising it won't last. When his attempt to end his half-life fails, he is taken to the local hospital where he is looked after by a nurse called Pauline, and visited by Freddie, the night-watchman from his group home for disabled men. As the stories of these three wounded characters circle and cross each other, we come to learn more of their lives. The father who caused her mother to abandon them both, and who Pauline loves and loathes in equal measure, the daughters Freddie yearns to be re-united with and, in a mysterious and frightening adventure story, the girlfriend Leroy dreams of protecting. Evoking a world which is still trying to come to terms with the legacy of a forgotten war, populated by those who struggle to pay for basic health care, Vlautin also captures how it is the small acts of kindness which can make a difference between life and death, between imprisonment and liberty. Haunting and essential, The Free is an unforgettable read.

Allison Johnson huye. Quiere alejarse de Las Vegas y de su novio, y se traslada a Reno en un intento por construir una nueva vida. No obstante, acosada por los errores que ha cometido en el pasado y carente de todo amor propio, sólo consigue encontrar consuelo en las conversaciones imaginarias que mantiene con Paul Newman. Pero la vida sigue. Allison encuentra un trabajo y, poco a poco, empiezan a brotar pequeños actos de amabilidad y parecen emerger nuevas oportunidades. Un libro contundente. Una historia pura. Real. Dura. Todo ello combinado con el personal estilo del autor que, mediante la suavidad del texto, consigue crear una luz tibia, un sopor y un colorido que la convierten, al mismo tiempo en una dulce balada «triste, inquietante y extrañamente hermosa», como la describe John Connolly.

Opening like an early Tom Waits barstool-tale, 'The Motel Life' tells the story of two brothers, Frank and Jerry Lee, who take to the road in an attempt to escape the hit and run accident caused by Jerry Lee. With intense feeling and compassion, Vlautin explores the lives and frustrations of the two brothers - one a natural storyteller, the other an aspiring artist - and renders perfectly the sense of entrapment they feel. Will the kid's death shock them out of their torpor or send them ever deeper into trouble? Can Annie James, a girl from their past, offer them any sort of redemption, however slim? Interspersed with drawings that form an integral part of the narrative, 'The Motel Life' is a moving and beautifully naive debut that should come to be seen as a classic of downbeat American prose. In a gritty debut, Vlautin explores a few weeks in the broken lives of two working-class brothers, Frank and Jerry Lee Flannigan, who abruptly ditch their Reno motel after Jerry Lee drunkenly kills a boy on a bicycle in a hit-and-run. The two are case studies in hard luck: their mother died when they were 14 and 16, respectively; their father is an ex-con deadbeat; neither finished high school. Frank has had just one girlfriend, motel neighbor Annie, whose mother is an abusive prostitute. An innocent simpleton, Jerry Lee is left feeling suicidal after the accident, despite his younger brother's efforts (à la Of Mice and Men's Lenny and George) to console him: 'It was real quiet, the way he cried,' says Frank, 'like he was whimpering.' On returning to Reno, an eventual reckoning awaits them. Vlautin's coiled, poetically matter-of-fact prose calls to mind S.E. Hinton—a writer well-acquainted with male misfit protagonists seeking redemption, no matter how destructive. Despite the bleak story and its inevitably tragic ending, Vlautin, who plays in the alt-country band Richmond Fontaine, transmits a quiet sense of resilience and hopefulness. (May)

"Supe que la mala suerte nos había encontrado a mi hermano y a mí. Y nosotros tomamos la mala suerte y nos atamos los pies con ella, como si los hubiésemos hundido en cemento fresco. Hicimos lo peor que se le podría ocurrir a nadie: huimos.“Como si Tom Waits nos susurrara relatos apoyado en la barra de un bar, Vida de motel cuenta la historia de dos hermanos, Frank y Jerry Lee, que se echan a la carretera en un intento de huir del atropello que ha cometido Jerry Lee. Con una enorme dosis de sentimiento y compasión, Willy Vlautin explora las vidas y las frustraciones de los dos hermanos -uno, narrador de historias nato; el otro, aspirante a artista-, y transmite a la perfección la sensación de opresión que sienten

Between looking after her brother, working two low-paid jobs, and trying to take part-time college classes, Lynette is dangerously tired.

Pacey and visceral.' Sunday Times'Imbued with the noirish urgency of a page-turning thriller.' Irish Times'Terrific.' Richard Russo'A revelation.' Megan AbbottBetween looking after her brother, attending night classes, and the combination of jobs she juggles, Lynette is dangerously tired. And when, after years of trying to scrape together enough for a mortgage, her plan is derailed, she must embark on a desperate odyssey through a city of greed.

Once part of a vibrant racing network, Portland Meadows is now seemingly the last haven for washed up jockeys and knackered horses, but its there that Charley meets Pete, an old horse who becomes his companion as hes forced to try to make his own way in the world.

Meet Horace Hopper, a twenty-one-year-old farm hand in Tonopah, Nevada, who works for Mr Reece and his wife, the nearest thing he's had to family in years. But Horace, half-white half-Paiute Indian, dreams of bigger things. Leaving behind the farm and its fragile stability, he heads South to re-invent himself as the Mexican boxer Hector Hidalgo. Slowly, painfully, the possibility emerges that his dreams might not just be the delusions of a lost soul. but at what cost, and what of those he's left behind? Exploring the fringes of contemporary America, Don't Skip Out on Me is an extraordinary work of compassion - a novel about the need for human connection and understanding - and essential reading, now more than ever.

Severely wounded in the Iraq war, Leroy has lived a half-life in a group home for eight years. Unable to bear it any longer, he commits a desperate act which helps him to disappear to another place. Freddie is the night porter at the home, who works two jobs yet can't make ends meet. Buried in debt from his younger daughter's medical bills, he's forced to consider a criminal proposition. Pauline is the nurse who tends Leroy, who lives her life in an uncomplicated way, emotionally removed, until she meets a young runaway. An extraordinary portrait of contemporary America, and a testament to the resilience of the human heart, The Free is Willy Vlautin's most moving and affecting novel to date.

«Más directo que Carver, menos ingenuo que Bukowski, Vlautin reclama hábilmente ese mismo territorio difuso y lo hace nuevo.» New York Times Book Review«Intensa y visceral.» Sunday Times«Vlautin es u