Oregonian Willy Vlautin, frontman of alt-country band Richmond Fontaine, is also a seasoned novelist. The Left And The Lucky, his eighth such work, introduces us to Eddie Wilkens, a fortysomething housepainter whose days, though largely trouble-free, occasionally require him to deal with his unreliable, hard-drinking employee Houston.
And then there’s Eddie’s neighbour Connie, a single mother trying to do best by her two sons. The eldest, Curtis, is frequently violent towards the younger, sweeter-natured Russell, and when Curtis is carted off to a young offenders’ institution for theft, he returns a few weeks later as mean-spirited as before.
In the meantime, Wilkens forms a surrogate father-esque kinship with Russell, in the process attempting to help Connie keep her head above water amidst a chaotic family life. There seems to be no bounds to the kindness Wilkens shows, even while he has his own crosses to bear.
As emotionally complex as it is unflinching and empathetic, with The Left And The Lucky Willy Vlautin shows once again that he is very much a modern-day answer to John Steinbeck – blessed not only with a comparably razor-sharp sense of social perception, but his realism too.
