Willy Vlautin

Willy Vlautin, a Scappoose resident, is an award-winning writer and frontman for the internationally acclaimed band Richmond Fontaine. The Motel Lifereceived the prestigious Nevada Silver Pen Award for outstanding fiction and has been translated into six languages.

"Vlautin’s coiled, poetically matter-of-fact prose calls to mind S.E.Hinton." — Publishers Weekly

Willy Vlautin's website.

4/26/2011:  Our very warmest Congratulations go to Willy Vlautin, whose book, Lean on Pete, won the Oregon Book Award 2011 Ken Kesey Prize for Literary Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award.  Congratulations, Willy, on your very well deserved accolades!

How to Order:

• Willy Vlautin's signed books are available year-round, limited to stock on hand. If you order inscribed copies, they will ship after the next time we meet with him.
• If you wish to receive a personalized book, indicate the person's name below. For example, "Joe". If you have further questions, please see the Signed Books FAQ page -- it's for the Chuck Palahniuk process, but your question may be answered there. If not, please contact the Orders Manager at order at sthelensbookshop dot com.

 

 

 

 

Lean on Pete (Paperback) -- signed or inscribed

$13.99

Model: LEAN10PB

Inscription?:

If you would like the book inscribed to a certain person, type their NAME here.

Fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson wants a home; food on the table; a high school he can attend for more than part of a year; and some structure to his life. But as the son of a single father working at warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, he's been pretty much on his own for some time. "Lean on Pete" opens as he and his father arrive in Portland, Oregon and Charley takes a stables job, illegally, at the local race track. Once part of a vibrant racing network, Portland Meadows is now seemingly the last haven for washed up jockeys and knackered horses, but it's there that Charley meets Pete, an old horse who becomes his companion as he's forced to try to make his own way in the world. A portrait of a journey - populated by a vivid cast of characters against a harsh landscape - "Lean on Pete" is also the unforgettable story of a friendship and of hope in dark times.

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The Motel Life (Paperback) -- signed or inscribed

$13.95

Model: MOTEL07PB

Inscription?:

If you would like the book inscribed to a certain person, type their NAME here.

"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 (a 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." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

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Northline (Paperback) -- signed or inscribed

$14.95

Model: NORTH08PB

Inscription?:

If you would like the book inscribed to a certain person, type their NAME here.

Fleeing Las Vegas and her abusive boyfriend, Allison Johnson moves to Reno, intent on making a new life for herself. Haunted by the mistakes of her past, and lacking any self-belief, her only comfort seems to come from the imaginary conversations she has with Paul Newman, and the characters he played.

But as life crawls on and she finds work, small acts of kindness start to reveal themselves to her, and slowly the chance of a new life begins to emerge. Full of memorable characters and imbued with a beautiful sense of yearning, Northline is an extraordinary portrait of contemporary America from a writer and musician whose work has been lauded as "mournful, understated, and proudly steeped in menthol smoke and bourbon" (New York Times Book Review).

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A Jockey's Christmas (CD) -- signed

$10.00

Model: JOCK08CD

Willy Vlautin, novelist and singer/songwriter for the Americana band Richmond Fontaine, has produced his first spoken word CD. "A Jockey's Christmas" is a dark comedy about JD, a misfit, overweight, alcoholic jockey whose career has dried up. The story chronicles his adventures on a journey home to Reno to spend the Christmas holiday with his family. "A Jockey's Christmas" is told in Vlautin's signature style - compassionate, spare, bleak, hilarious - and melds his two loves, music and letters.

Running 33 minutes, Vlautin's narrative is accompanied by Paul Brainard's (Richmond Fontaine) pedal steel and Vlautin's acoustic guitar, as well as noted Portland musician Ralph Huntley on accordion. It plays like an old-time radio show, with music woven into the story. "A Jockey's Christmas" is divided up into seven chapters and is followed by two race-themed bonus songs, each telling the story of the same race from two dramatically different perspectives.

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