Leaving Las Vegas
While I wandered into a bookstore aimlessly, a novel me just called ... sometimes, it happens, a sort of love at first sight .... The book in question is the second novel by Willy Vlautin " Full North . Besides being a talented writer, Willy Vlautin, 43, is also the leader of the rock band Richmond Fontaine . Originally from Reno, he depicts in his novel, he lives in Portland. Literary critics see him as the heir of Raymond Carver or John Fante.
Full North depicts the journey of Allison Johnson, a girl of 22 years, totally clueless, alcoholic, a victim of bad meetings, to whom life seems to have made any gifts. A youth with no future, who can not or she is going, or why it exists ... Dreams and illusions forever lost ...
The book opens with a scene untenable dead drunk Allison is driven by its Jimmy boyfriend in the bathroom of a casino. There, he rapes her, she can not say no, she did not have the strength to resist. The scene is pretty raw, violent ... of entry, one is in the heart of the matter is steep, hard to take, but it continues because the middle This distress and horror of this, one senses an element of light, ethereal beauty, something beautiful behind the mud and humiliation.
When she discovers she is pregnant, Allison decides to chuck everything. She left Las Vegas, his mother, his sister and her boyfriend too violent, trying to rebuild itself and especially to their child in the shelter of a racist father and unstable. Allison's journey is marked by injuries, but she rises, do not give up and commit the act of love the most beautiful and most desperate to be a young mother: she decides to adopt her child.
With this story being skinned alive, Vlautin (above) touched my heart. More than a story about the journey of a young girl full of dignity, which asks only to live like others, without fear of the future, without fear of his inner demons, not in fear of resurgence in his review existence of the man she left due north is the story of a long rebuilding but possible. Vlautin never remits the maudlin or voyeurism, he makes his characters of being out of the ordinary in search of freedom and respect, who despite injuries and violence they have suffered break out. On his way, Allison will have many encounters: TJ Watson, truck driver, Penny Pearson, with whom she works at night. The finest of his meetings are probably the one with Dan Mahony: two solitudes, two beings messed up just waiting to feel tame exist, and who knows? again pleased to learn ... Dan Mahony, "The Scarface", has a scar on his face, a certain point of view, each with its brands and its wounds, to Dan, it's a bad fight with dirty types who crushed forever.
I enjoyed the moments or Allison speaks with Paul Newman , which she knows by heart the entire filmography: he represents the ideal man, one who does not disappoint, small inner voice that even in his darkest moments, pushes her to get up, stop drinking, to resume his studies and to believe again in love. With him, she does not cheat, the dialogues between them are full of tenderness, the little twist of the novel is also the moments or Allison seems as: touching and very vulnerable.
Vlautin me alternately troubled and upset, because his writing is a rare accuracy, almost disconcerting ... Here, there is no pretense, the style is pure and sincere, steeped in humanity, and even when he describes scenes of absolute hardness, Vlautin leaves room for light and slowly lift the veil of despair ... It gives honor Allison found and more importantly, beyond d some form of redemption, the possibility of being happy again. At least that's what we hope for the end of the novel leaves us feeling bittersweet.
Roman punch, Full North is one of those books that shake us and we leave an indelible mark.
A book tender, poignant, shocking and cruel to be known as life.
As it is not so easy to end a love story, I decided to prolong the pleasure of meeting with an author who has touched me, reading Motel Life, which I probably talk soon.
To read about the music of Johnny Cash also very present in the novel by Willy Vlautin, playback will be more beautiful.
(256 pages, Albin Michel, collection "Land of America", released in November 2010)
small gift home, we listen Richmond Fontaine:
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