The Night Always Comes

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Lake Oswego Library - Lake Oswego Library Presents: Willy Vlautin - with Bill Kenower – on The Free and Don’t Skip Out on Me – video - 34:42

Between looking after her brother, working two low-paid jobs, and trying to take part-time college classes, Lynette is dangerously tired. Every penny she's earned for years, she's put into savings, trying to scrape together enough to take out a mortgage on the house she rents with her mother. Finally becoming a homeowner in their rapidly gentrifying Portland neighbourhood could offer Lynette the kind of freedoms she's never had. But, when the plan is derailed, Lynette must embark on a desperate odyssey of hope and anguish. Published in the US, several European and Asian countries, Vlautin's first book, The Motel Life was well received. It was an editor's choice in the New York Times Book Review and named one of the top 25 books of the year by the Washington Post. And money sets us against each other rather than brings us together to fight for a common good. Vlautin tells us a story of late-capitalism, in all its ugliness and cruelty, eating us alive. A powerful, sad book, beautifully written, in the rich vein of noir writing from Dostoevsky onward. To celebrate the publication of Willy Vlautin’s new novel The Night Always Comes (3rd June), Faber has announced a bonus CD for Rough Trade customers.His sixth novel to date, published in 2021, The Night Always Comes is arguably his most affecting, and without doubt will leave indelible marks. A book trailer which shows some of the locations mentioned in The Night Always Comes can be seen here. Vlautin’s sixth novel, The Night Always Comes, is set in Portland, Oregon. Set over the course of two days and two nights, it follows Lynnette and her desperate attempts to finally become a homeowner in her rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood. For a lot of years the only way I used to know how to get control of my life was to get mad. It was the only way I knew how to stand up for myself.’ Author Vlautin is interviewed on the book's release by the Poisoned Pen bookstore YouTube channel here.

Because this is exactly what desperate people DO. They aren't cunning. They aren't smart. They make split second decisions. They hit. They pull a knife. They grab what they can. They run. In common though with Vlautin's other work, this is a story about working class people. But whereas other writers may focus on a courageous warm-hearted protagonist who just needs a chance to shine, or a troubled person whose morals have been worn away through unfortunate circumstances, Vlautin uses a different and refreshing approach. As the novel opens, Lynette the protagonist, who lives with her mother and developmentally disabled adult brother, is cobbling together savings and debts, in an effort to buy the house they currently rent, for a little less than market value. A week away from closing the deal, her mother announces she doesn't want to buy at all. What may seem a mundane premise, comes alive as Lynette sets out to rectify the situation, swanning around the city over a weekend looking for money.Lynette clearly suffers from depression, probably drug and alcohol-induced. Her obsession is a kind of therapy, I suppose, that keeps her mind off her condition… until it doesn’t. Unaccountably, at that point she decides to do a clear out of her house before skipping town ahead of a posse of folk who’d like to string her up. it's a modest dream, but to her it represents stability, which she has had precious little of in her thirty years.

Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. it's a tautly coiled plot, and there's something almost noir about it as lynette spends the night-into-early-morning driven by her mounting desperation into a series of increasingly dangerous situations as she calls in her chits and faces the demons of her past, burning bridges all the way down. but other people get to have dreams, too, and her mother suddenly wants to carve out a different future for herself, one that doesn't involve living in a house with so many bad memories, and one that doesn't involve living with lynette anymore. she announces that she's made other arrangements and the rest of the book is a real-time scramble as lynette tries to wrangle enough money to buy the house on her own.

I do not travel in intellectual circles and I do not have the opportunity to speak with individuals who have a great interest in reading. Therefore my personal experience may be skewed. However I am beginning to feel that Willie Vlautin is one of the best modern American writers of fiction that I NEVER hear anyone speak about. I accidentally came upon him when reading a novel by George Pelecanos, “The Man Who Came Uptown”.

I loved the writing style and understood the characters so well. Lots of this reminded me of my old life. I want to mention that this isn’t a feel good book. But it was good. And I will definitely read another by this talented author. Great job. Willy Vlautin is not known for happy endings, but there's something here that defies the downward pull. In the end, Lynette is pure life force: fierce and canny and blazing through a city that no longer has space for her, and it's all Portland's loss." -- Portland Monthly Magazine Despite my frustrations, this is an exceptional and gripping read. The author's anger at watching his city shit on the vulnerable is palpable, and for this Northwest resident who has witnessed both her former home of Seattle and its beloved kid sister, Portland, become insufferably sanctimonious, impossibly expensive, and unrecognizably gentrified, it's sadly real. This was a compulsively readable thriller which has you rooting for the underdog protagonist all the way, even when she may not be the most likeable character or the maker of the best decisions. Normally the tags of 'noir' and 'hardboiled' are used for the detective genre, but they are completely appropriate for this domestic family drama. My thanks to GR Friend Berengaria's 4.5-5 star review which alerted me to this book. Vlautin is a master at showing, taking us through the events of a harrowing few days in Lynette’s life. What he chooses to show, and how clearly he shows it, gives us a very vibrant, if dark, picture of her life, and the limitations and challenges she faces from the outside world. One running comment is on the mass of construction underway. This place sold its parking lot for an apartment development. Another condo-building is going up here, more over there. Formerly recognizable neighborhoods have been transformed into yuppie-vortex.

Safe & Secure

But when Lynette’s mother reneges on the deal, that dream disappears in an instant. Lynette spirals, and most of the novel takes place over a single night as she tears feverishly through Portland, chasing down any lead that might result in some extra cash that could right the situation. Most of the people Lynette meets on this tragic, desperate night do not react kindly, and as the evening turns violent the exhaustion and isolation of her poverty ring clear as day. The Delines are a soul country band from Portland, Oregon formed in 2015 with four previous studio albums to their name. Willy Vlautin is the songwriter for the band and previously with Richmond Fontaine with over 15 albums released and UK, European wide fans where they tour regularly. Most people don't care about doing good. Most people just push you out of the way and grab what they want."