The Motel Life (23 page)
Author biography
Willy Vlautin’s acclaimed debut novel,
The Motel Life
, was first published in 2005. He is also the singer and main songwriter of the band Richmond Fontaine, richmondfontaine.co.uk, whose albums include
Post to Wire
(2004),
The Fitzgerald
(2005) and, most recently,
Thirteen Cities
. Originally from Reno, he now lives in Portland, Oregon.
‘The work of a careful and conscientious writer … Vlautin, like his musical equivalents Tom Waits and Shane MacGowan, manages to render pathos without sentimentality in prose whose tone is downbeat, fatalistic and hangdog.’
Hot Press
‘A sweet and aching story … which has drawn comparisons in style and voice to the work of Vlautin’s hero Raymond Carver. His prose is steeled with a disconcertingly pure honesty [but] the reader cannot but grow to like and worry for the brothers’
Irish Times
‘Like all the best bits of Denis Johnson and Raymond Carver worked up into something new and strange and funny.’
Nude
‘I find myself picking up
The Motel Life
and rereading it because – well, because it’s got everything that great books should; it has heart and great writing and ambivalence and complexity and humour and life … Other books published this year will have to go some ways to better Vlautin’s debut.’
Bookmunch.co.uk
‘A left-field masterpiece … like his band, his book was a darkly beautiful slice of Americana.’
Big Issue,
Books of the Year 2006
Copyright
First published in 2006
by Faber and Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House
74-77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2009
All rights reserved
© Willy Vlautin, 2006
Illustrations © Nate Beatty, 2006
The right of Willy Vlautin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 978—0—571—25012—7 [epub edition]