third rate in the tropics

My book review #26 of 2024 and probably my final one, as part of a resolution this past year to write book reviews for each I read, to perhaps inspire others, is for The Horse by Willy Vlautin, a hand me down from others in my family. I once had the immense privilege of interviewing Vlautin himself for an Our Town Reno story about motels he’d written about in his first book The Motel Life, now mostly all gone amid downtown gentrification: https://www.ourtownreno.com/our-stories-1/2018/4/15/willy-vlautin-author-of-the-motel-life-torn-on-renos-disappearing-motels His latest book has stark, folksy, minimalistic echoes of the late great Cormac McCarthy, with a 60-something songwriter, guitarist barely living out memories of gone south relationships and being a small time but admired musician in multiple bands, who dishearteningly make more money when playing covers. An ailing horse by an unused mine in a barren part of Nevada where he’s living his last chapter, thanks to his grea...