Synopses & Reviews
With "echoes of Of Mice and Men"(The Bookseller, UK), The Motel Life explores the frustrations and failed dreams of two Nevada brothers on the run after a hit-and-run accident who, forgotten by society, and short on luck and hope, desperately cling to the edge of modern life.
Review
"This guy writes like the secret love child of Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor just plain, true, tough, irony-free, heartrending American fiction about people living in the third-world sections of our country. It's a book that makes you feel like you've been shot but will probably recover." Michael Gruber
Review
"The Motel Life is that rare beast: a book with the cadence of an old, well-loved song. Sad, haunting, and strangely beautiful." John Connolly
Review
"A brilliant read-in-one-sitting novel, so simple, so spare and so honest." David Peace, author GB84 and The Red Riding Quartet
Review
"A hugely compassionate, wildly original road movie of a novel about two brothers, Frank and Jerry, who are trying to escape the ramifications of a fatal hit-and-run accident. The warm-hearted folksy balladeer proves hes just as much at home on the printed page as he is behind a mic, with detailed yet understated drawings complementing the tale." Esquire (UK)
Review
“Vlautins coiled, poetically matter-of-fact prose calls to mind S.E.Hinton.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“Im floored…This book feel so damn real, so powerful, so much like life, even if its not yours.” Jonathan Zwickel, The Stranger
Review
“If theres any justice, anywhere, The Motel Life will be widely read and widely admired.” Booklist
Review
“A natural for the bigscreen and in fact Babel and 21 Grams writer Guillermo Arriaga has bought the film rights…” Salt Lake City Tribune
Review
“Slighter than Carver, less puerile than Bukowski, Vlautin…manages to lay claim to the same blearyeyed territory, and…to make it new.” New York Times Book Review, EDITOR'S CHOICE
Review
“Both heartbreaking and inspirational…written…with a simple hypnotic tone that seems as if it was grown in the Reno heat.” Associated Press ASAP
Review
“The furthest Vlautins men can move is in circles, shackled to their dysfunctions and their meager paychecks…” San Francisco Weekly
Synopsis
With "echoes of Of Mice and Men"(The Bookseller, UK), The Motel Life explores the frustrations and failed dreams of two Nevada brothers on the run after a hit-and-run accident who, forgotten by society, and short on luck and hope, desperately cling to the edge of modern life."
About the Author
Willy Vlautin is a member of the internationally acclaimed band Richmond Fontaine. he lives in Portland, Oregon.