Northline

Willy Vlautin

Northline
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Faber & Faber
Country
United Kingdom
Published
7 February 2008
Pages
208
ISBN
9780571235704

Northline

Willy Vlautin

Fleeing Las Vegas, and her abusive boyfriend, Allison Johnson moves to Reno, intent on making a new life for herself. But haunted by the mistakes of her past, and lacking any self belief, her only comfort seems to come from the imaginary conversations she has with her hero, Paul Newman, and the characters he played. But as life crawls on and she finds work, small acts of kindness start to reveal themselves to her, and slowly the chance of a new life begins to emerge.

Full of memorable characters and imbued with a beautiful sense of yearning, Northline is both an extraordinary portrait of contemporary America and an emotional tour de force, from an author praised for his ‘compassion and warmth.’ (The Times)

Review

Willy Vlautin’s style of writing is almost script-like, reminding the reader of a David Lynch film. The story centres around Alison Johnson, a 22-year-old high school drop-out with self-destructive tendencies who lives in Las Vegas, but, through misadventures, finds herself pregnant to her abusive boyfriend. She arranges to give it up for adoption and skips town to start a new life in Reno. Although Alison has had some bad experiences, she has not lost her genuine spirit. However, she has low self-esteem and is constantly taken advantage of. Alison’s saviour is the actor Paul Newman, her imaginary confidant and advisor. Alison has been speaking to Newman since she first began to get blackouts as a teenager and watched his movies as she convalesced. Some characters are repulsive. There are also issues of racism against illegal immigrants, which are put into context and balanced with moments of kindness and strength of the human spirit. There are very real scenes of everyday small-town American life. Vlautin’s writing style puts you right in that place; this is a great little novel with a beautiful soundtrack of Vlautin’s music (he is also a musician in the band Richmond Fountain) that keeps the mood just right.

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