Willy Vlautin (The Horse) applies his characteristic compassion and spare tone to an unlikely friendship in The Left and the Lucky, a novel of hard times and scant hope. A boy whose life has been ruled by abuse and neglect and a man whose hard work has been rewarded by betrayal and loss find each other in working-class Portland, Ore., and forge a hard-won bond to their mutual benefit.
Russell is eight years old and lives with his grandmother, who has dementia; his mother, who works nights; and his teenaged brother, who is angry and troubled. As the latter spins further afield, Russell dreams of building a boat or an airplane to take him away to an unpopulated island near Hawai'i. Eddie, who lives next door, runs a small house-painting business, working six or more days a week. Russell turns up on Eddie's rounds of the neighborhood: out too late, hiding from something. The man offers the boy food, a ride home. Russell begins waiting in Eddie's backyard each night, and Eddie gives him odd jobs and shelter from violence.
In his eighth novel, Vlautin continues to focus upon an American underclass marked by desperation and poverty, people often forgotten or abandoned. With a gruff tenderness, a quiet lyricism, and moments of humor, he highlights not only the built family that Russell and Eddie assemble, but also motley characters from their neighborhood. The Left and the Lucky is often grim, but Eddie's dogged decency uplifts even in this grayscale world of limited options. Vlautin's character sketches and the careful value he places on perseverance are not soon forgotten. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia