Review by New York Times Review
FICTION DEPICTING THE lives of working-class Americans has a long tradition. Its practitioners - John Steinbeck, Raymond Carver, Tillie Olsen and Stewart O'Nan, to name a few - aim for a frank portrayal of men and women whose freedom is limited by economic and social realities, and whose American dream is elusive at best. These works often bypass overt lyricism in favor of unadorned prose, to create a kind of literary cinéma vérité. But just as there is no objective truth when a camera is turned on a subject, so too is literary realism a tricky practice. Some novels are so wedded to a blunt rendition of reality that they seem, paradoxically, less real than life, which after all is studded with moments of poetry and metaphoric resonance. The challenge for the writer of social realism is to enlist the plastic qualities of fiction to produce something lifelike, in which artifice creates the shimmer of recognition. In his fourth novel, "The Free," Willy Vlautin demonstrates an impressive ability to navigate this challenge. Seamlessly structured like a fugue - Vlautin is an alt-country singer and songwriter as well as a novelist - "The Free" tells the story of hard-luck characters whose worlds collide when a brain-damaged Iraq war veteran tries to kill himself. He winds up in the hospital instead, under the steadfast attention of a nurse with troubles of her own. (Among other things, she takes care of her mentally ill father despite his constant abuse.) Vlautin also introduces the night manager at the group home where the veteran lives, and a young runaway named Jo. Each is engaged in a quiet struggle against daunting but everyday odds: the human costs of war, the inequities of health care, the crush of debt, the subtle ravages of loneliness. When Jo arrives at the same hospital as the veteran, with an infection resulting from drug use, the nurse becomes emotionally invested in her predicament. Meanwhile, the night manager stops by to visit his unconscious resident, and we learn his life is no easier: His ex-wife has taken their children while he works two jobs to meet medical bills and keep a family home. (Vlautin may be an alt-country musician, but as a novelist he can be pure country.) These characters face their burdens with unwavering dignity, and Vlautin's affection for them is evident at every turn. With straightforward economy, he draws us into their seemingly intractable problems, revealing their persistence and decency. In the novel's one surreal gesture, Vlautin dramatizes the veteran's dystopian nightmares, about a militarized world where a vigilante group called the Free brutalizes and murders citizens who do not serve. For the most part, Vlautin's unadorned narrative is affecting; these unassuming characters bore into us in surprising ways. When Jo insists she will remain with her addict friends because "they're the only people I know," her plain truth is a harrowing reminder of all the ways in which people become trapped. At times, however, Vlautin's refusal to let the characters react with anything but plain-spoken equanimity begins to feel like idealism, and it has the effect of flattening the narrative. Interestingly, the veteran's bizarre nightmares - and our understanding of what they convey about the dark heart of society - do as much to suggest the reality Vlautin has set out to capture. MARISA SILVER is the author of five works of fiction, including "The God of War" and "Alone With You." Her most recent novel is "Mary Coin."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 23, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* There are a number of musician-novelists turning out fine work in both fields, but singer-songwriter Vlautin (he performs with the band Richmond Fontaine) is clearly at the head of this multitalented group. From The Motel Life (2007) through Lean on Pete (2010), he has chronicled, in unsparing, unsentimental prose, the lives of bighearted working-class folk on the wrong side of the economic spectrum. His fourth novel returns to the same terrain, but the ante is upped a notch here as he focuses on the lives of three people in small-town Washington State who face insurmountable obstacles but do so with remarkable grace under pressure. Leroy Kervin is a severely injured veteran of the Iraq War, confined to a nursing home, who lives in an alternate world that is every bit as dystopian as real life; Pauline Hawkins is a single woman who works as a caregiver in the home where Leroy lives and who attempts to save another patient, a heroin-addicted teen in danger from abscesses caused by dirty needles; Freddie McCall, the night man at Leroy's group home, works two jobs but is slowly, inevitably losing everything in his effort to support his daughters, living in Nevada with their mother. At times, reading the heartbreaking, interlocking stories of these circumstance-ravaged souls can almost seem unbearable, but just when you're ready to put the book down in despair, Vlautin delivers a moment of not hope exactly but unvarnished, aching humanity that takes your breath away. There are no winners here and certainly no conventional happy endings (only an occasional, fleeting break in the cloud cover) but, most important, and this is Vlautin's point, there are no losers, either.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This strong fourth novel from Portland singer/songwriter and author Vlautin (The Motel Life) follows three protagonists who find the strength to make the best of difficult situations. Leroy Kervin, an Iraq War veteran gravely wounded in a roadside-bomb explosion seven years ago, is an inpatient at a male group home in Washington State, where his longtime girlfriend, Jeanette, and mother, Darla, sometimes come to visit. Severely depressed, he attempts suicide by jumping out of an upper-story window, which leaves him bedridden. Freddie McCall, a night orderly at the home, works a second job at a paint store to pay off the debts incurred by medical treatment for his young, physically handicapped daughter, Virginia, who lives with his ex in Las Vegas. Pauline Hawkins, a hospital nurse now caring for Leroy, lives alone with her pet rabbit and keeps an eye on her dysfunctional father. As Leroy succumbs even more to his depression, he has a series of increasingly bizarre, violent dreams involving him and Jeanette being pursued by a relentless vigilante militia calling itself "the Free." Pauline tries to save a 16-year-old patient who's become addicted to heroin, while Freddie learns he may have a chance to be reunited with his family. Despite the grim trajectory of Leroy's story, Pauline and Freddie's innate decency adds a refreshingly positive note to Vlautin's character-driven novel. Agent: Anna Stein O'Sullivan, Aitken Alexander Associates, (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
An elegy for the blue-collar worker, Vlautin's (Lean on Pete) fourth novel focuses on three ordinary people and spotlights their essential dignity in the face of economic hardship. Eight years after leaving Iraq with a traumatic brain injury, Leroy Kervin in a rare moment of clarity attempts to commit suicide at his group home, unable to see any way that he could live a happy life. Freddie McCall, at the first of his two jobs he works to fight off mounting medical bills, is the night caretaker at the home and calls in the accident. Leroy is moved to a hospital, bedridden and lost in the fog of his own mind, in which he plays out a fantastical adventure with his girlfriend Jeanette as they elude a mysterious gang known as the Free. His nurse, Pauline Hawkins, who lives alone and cares for her aging and infirm father, develops a bond with one of her patients, a heroin-addicted 16-year-old runaway. Verdict Despite touching on urgent national issues such as health care and the death of the middle class, Vlautin's deeply sympathetic novel never feels labored or overtly political, telling its characters' stories in direct, unvarnished prose that recalls the best of John Steinbeck.-Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Vlautin's fourth novel (Lean on Pete, 2010, etc.), about damaged people caring for each other across a spectrum of society. Vlautin creates a community of survivors through a handful of well-wrought characters, each linked to the others through the attempted suicide by Leroy Kervin, a disabled Iraq war veteran who seizes a moment of clarity to escape his irreparable life. Freddie is a night caretaker at the group home where Leroy lives with his fear while fighting desperation at not being able to support his family. At the hospital, Pauline nurses him and another new patient, Jo, a runaway from a harsh world beyond her comprehension. The broken, the poor and the desperate fill this book--with dignity. Each one cares for another with grace and humility. Set in motion by Leroy's deliberate plunge down the stairs onto a wooden stake, the book examines the characters' individual humanness, peculiarly American in spirit. This is a story of our times--about the lack of work, the cost of health insurance, the demonizing of war and the damage to life in the working class. At first odd and magical, the narrative becomes more violent and hate-filled. "The Free" of the novel's title appear in a Cormac McCarthylike vision of a demonic wasteland. Vlautin writes cleanly, beautifully about the people who hang on despite odds. This is a fine novel, grim but bounded by courage and kindliness.]]]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
