A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Michael Toms for the iconic New Dimensions radio show. Toms, often called the...
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In XO Orpheus (Penguin), 50 leading writers retell myths from around the world in the dazzling follow-up to My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. These stories herald a new beginning for one of the world's oldest literary traditions. Joining editor Kate Bernheimer will be contributors Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall, and Willy Vlautin, author of Lean on Pete.
From Willy Vlautin, one of the most natural storytellers ever to come out of the Northwest, comes a heartbreaking adventure starring 15-year-old Charley Thompson. It's like Tom Sawyer, but with more drunks, death, and weird strangers. Another engrossing triumph from this underappreciated author. Recommended by Kevin Sampsell, Powell's City of Books
Review-A-Day
"Vlautin won me over. He's so much more than cool. I don't care if he hangs out at the racetrack. I care about whether he delivers. And in Lean on Pete, he most certainly does. His prose is strong, his storytelling is honest, and he sticks to it scene by scene. By the time Lean on Pete reaches its sweet but unsentimental end, Charley Thompson isn't a character in a novel, but a boy readers have come to love." Cheryl Strayed, The Oregonian (Read the entire Oregonian review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson wants a home, food on the table, and a high school he can attend for more than part of a year. But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley's been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track. Charley's only comforts are his friendship with a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete and a photograph of his only known relative. In an increasingly desperate circumstance, Charley will head east, hoping to find his aunt who had once lived a thousand miles away in Wyoming — but the journey to find her will be a perilous one.
In Vlautin's third novel, Lean on Pete, he reveals the lives and choices of American youth like Charley Thompson who were failed by those meant to protect them and who were never allowed the chance to just be a kid.
Review:
"A blend of road novel and not-quite hard luck story, the latest from Vlautin (The Motel Life) begins when 15-year-old Charley Thompson and his father move from Spokane, Wash. to Portland, Ore., to give starting over yet another try. When Charley's dad takes up with a married secretary and stops coming home, Charley takes a job with Del Montgomery, a crank based out of the nearby racetrack who, among other things, shoots up a horse with vodka. After Charley's father dies from wounds suffered during a fight with his lover's husband, Charley, whom Vlautin has conveniently given the pastime of running, runs away with Pete, a horse and his only friend. This is where the narrative sours; Charley's trek across the West, occasionally on horseback, is dominated by an unbelievable stretch of luck: men appear to dispense food and money, miraculously uninhabited trailers contain washers and dryers, and his hitchhiking is eerie, but not dangerous. Still, Vlautin's characters, despite their unrealistic arcs, shine with his sparse style. It might be difficult to believe Charley's bottomless cache of silver linings, but it's remarkably easy to root for the kid." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Vlautin has created a convincing tragic hero, a dreamer and a survivor. Charley says more than Holden Caulfield ever did. This is a rare book because of its raw truth, its candor. It is a telling odyssey that stabs you in the heart and makes you consider every casual crime of neglect or cruelty ever committed against a child or animal....As one boy's journey, Lean on Pete is as real as blood: as a novel it is remarkable. Willy Vlautin, romantic and realist, has written something special that will make you shudder, weep, rage and wonder at how such things happen and do, and how some individuals such as Charley can suffer them, absorb the grief, and somehow survive. How good is contemporary US fiction? This good: catch your breath good." Irish Times, Eileen Battersby
Review:
"Vlautin transforms what might have been a weepy, unbelievable TV-movie of a novel into a tough-and-tender account of a boy, a big-hearted horse, and a mostly unforgiving world....Unforgettable." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review:
"Spare and straightforward....There is intensity in Vlautin's narration, and also beauty and power....But Vlautin's major accomplishment lies in posing a damning question: How could we, as a society, have allowed this to happen?" Seattle Times
Review:
"For anyone with a sentimental attachment to beasts of an equine nature, a river of tears awaits." The List, UK
Review:
"The comparisons with Steinbeck and Carver are richly deserved, yet Vlautin is a truly original voice...powerful, heartbreaking stuff. Just three novels in and Vlautin is already one of the best writers in America." Mark Billingham
Review:
"Reading Willy Vlautin is like jumping into a clear, cold lake in the middle of summer. His prose is beautifully spare and clean, but underneath the surface lies an incredible depth, with all kinds of hidden stories and emotions resting in the shadows." Hannah Tinti
Review:
"Willy Vlautin's novels are clean as a bone, companionable, and profound. He is a master at paring loneliness and longing from his characters, issuing them through downturns, trials and transience without starving their humanity, and always sustaining them, and the reader, with ordinary hope." Sarah Hall
Review:
"Lean on Pete reminds me of the best parts of Gus Van Sant's beautiful film My Own Private Idaho. Willy's voice is pure and his stories universal. He never loses hope or heart and I believe every word he's written." Barry Gifford
Review:
"Among my favourite novels of the year have been Willy Vlautin's Lean on Pete which is possibly his bleakest yet." New Statesman, Books of the Year
Review:
"Spare and unadorned, but nevertheless poetic...full of boundless compassion for the dispossessed and rootless." Uncut Magazine (Starred Review)
Review:
"Lean on Pete confirms his status as one of the most emotionally charged writers in America....Vlautin's characters, memorable however curtailed their cameos might be, become a sketchbook of America....The band has to be a hobby now. Vlautin is a writer." Sunday Herald, UK
Review:
"Arguably his best so far....If you like melancholy Americana Vlautin's writing is for you." Bookseller (London), Bookseller's Choice
Review:
"An archetypal American novel, Huck Finn for the crystal-meth generation...a sad, often brutal, but oddly beautiful portrait of an America that's forgotten only because we choose not to remember its continuing existence." Independent Extra
Synopsis:
"[Vlautin] unearths a world Steinbeck would have recognised...where the American underclass still resides. Lean On Pete is an archetypal American novel, Huck Finn for the crystal-meth generation." —Independent Extra
Author Willy Vlautin—“a major realist talent”(Seattle Post Intelligencer) who is often compared to Raymond Carver, John Steinbeck, and Denis Johnson—returns with Lean on Pete, the story of a 15-year old boy struggling to make his way to a long lost aunt, who just might give him a home. In the words of author Mark Billingham, “Vlautin is a truly original voice.… [and] one of the best writers in America,” and “Lean on Pete is powerful, heartbreaking stuff.”
Mignonne, January 19, 2012 (view all comments by Mignonne)
I loved this story, sad but compelling. It gave me a glimpse into a world I knew nothing about: racetrack life. The grit & the longing of the 15 year old, Charlie, was poignant. I also appreciated the clear writing & the vivid descriptions of Northeast Portland, central Oregon & Colfax Avenue in Denver. An author I'll read again.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Mignonne, January 19, 2012 (view all comments by Mignonne)
I loved this story, sad but compelling. It gave me a glimpse into a world I knew nothing about: racetrack life. The grit & the longing of the 15 year old, Charlie, was poignant. I also appreciated the clear writing & the vivid descriptions of Northeast Portland, central Oregon & Colfax Avenue in Denver. An author I'll read again.
From Willy Vlautin, one of the most natural storytellers ever to come out of the Northwest, comes a heartbreaking adventure starring 15-year-old Charley Thompson. It's like Tom Sawyer, but with more drunks, death, and weird strangers. Another engrossing triumph from this underappreciated author.
by Kevin Sampsell
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"A blend of road novel and not-quite hard luck story, the latest from Vlautin (The Motel Life) begins when 15-year-old Charley Thompson and his father move from Spokane, Wash. to Portland, Ore., to give starting over yet another try. When Charley's dad takes up with a married secretary and stops coming home, Charley takes a job with Del Montgomery, a crank based out of the nearby racetrack who, among other things, shoots up a horse with vodka. After Charley's father dies from wounds suffered during a fight with his lover's husband, Charley, whom Vlautin has conveniently given the pastime of running, runs away with Pete, a horse and his only friend. This is where the narrative sours; Charley's trek across the West, occasionally on horseback, is dominated by an unbelievable stretch of luck: men appear to dispense food and money, miraculously uninhabited trailers contain washers and dryers, and his hitchhiking is eerie, but not dangerous. Still, Vlautin's characters, despite their unrealistic arcs, shine with his sparse style. It might be difficult to believe Charley's bottomless cache of silver linings, but it's remarkably easy to root for the kid." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review A Day"
by Cheryl Strayed, The Oregonian,
"Vlautin won me over. He's so much more than cool. I don't care if he hangs out at the racetrack. I care about whether he delivers. And in Lean on Pete, he most certainly does. His prose is strong, his storytelling is honest, and he sticks to it scene by scene. By the time Lean on Pete reaches its sweet but unsentimental end, Charley Thompson isn't a character in a novel, but a boy readers have come to love." (Read the entire Oregonian review)
"Review"
by Irish Times, Eileen Battersby,
"Vlautin has created a convincing tragic hero, a dreamer and a survivor. Charley says more than Holden Caulfield ever did. This is a rare book because of its raw truth, its candor. It is a telling odyssey that stabs you in the heart and makes you consider every casual crime of neglect or cruelty ever committed against a child or animal....As one boy's journey, Lean on Pete is as real as blood: as a novel it is remarkable. Willy Vlautin, romantic and realist, has written something special that will make you shudder, weep, rage and wonder at how such things happen and do, and how some individuals such as Charley can suffer them, absorb the grief, and somehow survive. How good is contemporary US fiction? This good: catch your breath good."
"Review"
by Booklist (Starred Review),
"Vlautin transforms what might have been a weepy, unbelievable TV-movie of a novel into a tough-and-tender account of a boy, a big-hearted horse, and a mostly unforgiving world....Unforgettable."
"Review"
by Seattle Times,
"Spare and straightforward....There is intensity in Vlautin's narration, and also beauty and power....But Vlautin's major accomplishment lies in posing a damning question: How could we, as a society, have allowed this to happen?"
"Review"
by The List, UK,
"For anyone with a sentimental attachment to beasts of an equine nature, a river of tears awaits."
"Review"
by Mark Billingham,
"The comparisons with Steinbeck and Carver are richly deserved, yet Vlautin is a truly original voice...powerful, heartbreaking stuff. Just three novels in and Vlautin is already one of the best writers in America."
"Review"
by Hannah Tinti,
"Reading Willy Vlautin is like jumping into a clear, cold lake in the middle of summer. His prose is beautifully spare and clean, but underneath the surface lies an incredible depth, with all kinds of hidden stories and emotions resting in the shadows."
"Review"
by Sarah Hall,
"Willy Vlautin's novels are clean as a bone, companionable, and profound. He is a master at paring loneliness and longing from his characters, issuing them through downturns, trials and transience without starving their humanity, and always sustaining them, and the reader, with ordinary hope."
"Review"
by Barry Gifford,
"Lean on Pete reminds me of the best parts of Gus Van Sant's beautiful film My Own Private Idaho. Willy's voice is pure and his stories universal. He never loses hope or heart and I believe every word he's written."
"Review"
by New Statesman, Books of the Year,
"Among my favourite novels of the year have been Willy Vlautin's Lean on Pete which is possibly his bleakest yet."
"Review"
by Uncut Magazine (Starred Review),
"Spare and unadorned, but nevertheless poetic...full of boundless compassion for the dispossessed and rootless."
"Review"
by Sunday Herald, UK,
"Lean on Pete confirms his status as one of the most emotionally charged writers in America....Vlautin's characters, memorable however curtailed their cameos might be, become a sketchbook of America....The band has to be a hobby now. Vlautin is a writer."
"Review"
by Bookseller (London), Bookseller's Choice,
"Arguably his best so far....If you like melancholy Americana Vlautin's writing is for you."
"Review"
by Independent Extra,
"An archetypal American novel, Huck Finn for the crystal-meth generation...a sad, often brutal, but oddly beautiful portrait of an America that's forgotten only because we choose not to remember its continuing existence."
"Synopsis"
by Harper Collins,
"[Vlautin] unearths a world Steinbeck would have recognised...where the American underclass still resides. Lean On Pete is an archetypal American novel, Huck Finn for the crystal-meth generation." —Independent Extra
Author Willy Vlautin—“a major realist talent”(Seattle Post Intelligencer) who is often compared to Raymond Carver, John Steinbeck, and Denis Johnson—returns with Lean on Pete, the story of a 15-year old boy struggling to make his way to a long lost aunt, who just might give him a home. In the words of author Mark Billingham, “Vlautin is a truly original voice.… [and] one of the best writers in America,” and “Lean on Pete is powerful, heartbreaking stuff.”
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