Anytime I crack open a fresh Willy Vlautin novel, I brace myself to flip through a rolodex of misfortune. Most reviews of his work dutifully hit the same set of keywords to describe his worlds: downtrodden, fringe, bleak, down-and-out, hardscrabble, underbelly, endlessly sad—and my favorite, because it’s as spare and straightforward as Vlautin’s own prose: depressing. Vlautin himself once admitted in an interview with Oregon Artswatch, “That’s always been kind of a weakness of mine, making stuff too bleak.”
But there’s another side to his work, too: hopeful, even transcendent, as comforting as watching TV reruns on the couch when you’re sick. In The Left and the Lucky, that optimism comes through in Eddie Wilkens, a 42-year-old divorced housepainter living with his old dog in Portland. Eddie is steady, calm, resolute. He cooks dinner, likes old cars, pays his workers on time, and keeps his promises. For Russell, his eight-year-old neighbor in need of a safe haven, he becomes something like a lifeline.
So I clench my fists and dive back into Vlautin’s Portland, where all people great and small are wrought out of bad luck and stubbornness and living moment to moment. Even Russell, arguably Vlautin’s most innocent character yet, is forced to fend for himself, seeking refuge from his older brother at Eddie’s house. More than safety, he longs for scraps of attention and affection, which Eddie offers as naturally as if Russell were his own son.
Vlautin’s style hinges on methodical exteriority. Inner thoughts rarely enter the picture; we only know what a character does or says. The prose is so consistent it becomes rhythmic. Lists aren’t off limits, nor are pithy jokes or long-winded tall tales from the likes of Houston, Eddie’s morally improvisational employee. (Vlautin’s previous novel, The Horse, filled entire paragraphs with song titles like “The Used-Car Lot” and “A Drink Before Work.”) To get at the heart of the story, you learn to rely on your own empathy to fill in what’s unsaid.
The Left and the Lucky, like Vlautin’s other work, isn’t a cerebral novel. There’s nothing highbrow about it, nor does it read like a case study in the working class. Things happen. People talk. Time moves on. But it’s not like Hemingway—it’s warmer than that. You read it, you feel it, and you remember the good in your own life, and how quickly it can disappear. It’s a world where comfort and misery coexist, where hope looks like Eddie’s van pulling up and taking you to a warm, safe place. Where the left are the lucky.
I would be remiss not to nod to Vlautin’s musical career, since it’s so central to his world-building. The Left and the Lucky is actually an expansion of a 2021 short story, The Kill Switch, which was released alongside a soundtrack by his alt-country soul band The Delines. The new novel has its own companion soundtrack (a fact I discovered too late, having missed the preorder), but The Kill Switch recordings deepen the atmosphere just as well. Go in order, or start with “When Marlene Was Marlene” to hear Amy Boone’s perfect dive bar-honed voice.
In the acknowledgments of the Left and the Lucky, Vlautin writes, “I hated painting but I sure loved hanging out with the painters,” and you realize that the magic of his work undoubtedly, is the filament of hope that he manages to suspend, no matter how opaque. There’s comfort in bringing home a pizza, in taking a midday diner breaks, in trips to Fred Meyer. When the book ends, you find yourself wanting to check in on everyone just one more time, just to make sure they’re okay. And knowing Vlautin, they’re doing just fine.
***
The Left and the Lucky
by Willy Vlautin
HarperCollins; 256 p.