Motel Life

Just finished Motel Life by Willy Vlautin. Vlautin is another writer in the Minimalist tradition. At the end of book is an interview with the author. He discusses his 'Road to Carver', citing influences such as Hemingway and Bukowski, which eventually led to his discovering the works of Raymond Carver.

"Raymond Carver changed my life," Vlautin proclaims. Carver's touch is felt in Motel Life, but by no means is this work a copy.

Motel Life is the tale of two brothers, Frank and Jerry Lee, who live in Reno, NV. They are destitute alcoholics, and their lives are upended one night when Jerry Lee, driving drunk, kills a teenager on a bicycle. They flee Reno, but Jerry Lee is so consumed with guilt that he ditches Frank and returns to Reno, where he eventually shoots himself in his stump leg--the leg was severed years earlier when Frank and Jerry Lee tried to hop a moving train.

The only glimmer in their hopeless lives are the stories that Frank tells Jerry Lee as they lie in bed at night. The two are re-imagined as wealthy tycoons, WWII fighter pilots, daring spies, happy sons of a loving father ...

The tenderness between the two brothers echoed long after I finished the book.

Knockemstiff

Knockemstiff is a collection of short stories by Donald Ray Pollock. It's the best collection I've read since The Pugilist At Rest, by Thom Jones.

All of the stories take place in the impoverished mill town of Knockemstiff, Ohio. There is so much to love about the stories: The original voices, the stupid decisions of the doomed characters, the irreverance, the immediate and vivid language. I drove to six different stores in search of this book, and I would drive across state lines if I couldn't find a copy.

It's difficult to choose a favorite story, but forced, I'll go with Hair's Fate. Only thirteen pages, I can't get the images from my head: The boy jerking off in the shed with his sister's doll, jizzing in the doll's blonde hair as his father walks in. The redneck father who as punishment chops off the boy's hair with a butcher knife, leaving his bald head scabbed. The boy running away, hitching a ride with a fat trucker who loads him up on speed. The redneck trucker's dingy doublewide trailer. The trucker offering his dead mother's wig, to cover the scabs, then cutting the wig so it fits. The boy and the trucker staring in the mirror at the purty wig, the trucker's sweaty hand on his shoulder ...

Yeah, all the stories are intense.

Born in the USA.