The Motel Life
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- 9,99 €
Publisher Description
'The night it happened I was drunk, almost passed out, and I swear to God a bird came flying through my motel room window . . .'
Narrated by Frank Flannigan, The Motel Life tells the story of how he and his brother Jerry Lee take to the road in a bid to escape the hit-and-run accident which kick-starts the narrative. Written with huge compassion, and an eye for the small details of life, it has become one of the most talked about debuts of recent years.
'That rare beast: a book with the cadence of an old, well-loved song. Sad, haunting, and strangely beautiful.' John Connolly, author of The Black Angel
'A serene and assured piece of minor-key Americana . . . Not many people do anything similar over here, with the same sense of small town big-sky melancholy. So British readers looking for a shot of post-Beat generation blues should reach with confidence for Vlautin's book.' Jonathan Gibbs, Independent
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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 ( 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.
