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.
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