Book review.

The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin.

Willy Vlautin's novel, The Motel Life, has an air of melancholy about it. It concerns the life of people on the periphery of society, down on their luck, living transitory lives day by day with limited futures. This is especially so for the two main characters of the book, Frank and Jerry-Lee Flannigan, brothers whose lives never got started.
When Frank is awaken in his room one winter's night by Jerry-Lee saying that he'd hit and killed a young boy with his car, their miserly fortunes hit rock bottom. It's also the catalyst for them to both reassess their lives.
After dumping the body of the boy outside the local hospital, Frank knows that he needs to get Jerry-Lee away from the environment they live in. They go on the road to distance themselves from the incident and think about what to do next. Jerry-Lee's guilt, however, gets the better of him, and after abandoning Frank, takes off by himself to end his life. This provides Frank with time to reflect on their lives and how misfortunes suffered by both have curtailed their chances of success in life. For Frank it concerns his broken heart by a young woman in a similar predicament to him. For Jerry-Lee, it's never really getting over losing the lower part of one of his legs in a freak accident. Thinking about his past, the opportunities not taken and the romance that broke his heart, Frank wonders whether if things had been different, may his fortunes at present and for the future be brighter for himself.
Arriving back in Reno, Frank discovers that Jerry-Lee is in hospital after failing to kill himself and only shooting himself in the leg. Frank is left drifting around town, trying to come to terms with his brother's predicament and his own implication. As Jerry-Lee's guilt and anxiety intensify in hospital and police start asking questions, Frank knows they both need to escape from the current situation, leave their current lives behind, and try to rebuild and establish futures for themselves.
Hitting the road once more, Frank heads where he thinks a future for himself and Jerry-Lee may be. Frank heads to the town where the girl that broke his heart lives. Maybe a future can be attain with reuniting and reconciliation. As Frank and his ex-girlfriend re-establish contact and start to work things out, Jerry-Lee's health and mood worsen and eventually he dies. Strangely this doesn't leave Frank adrift by himself and he sees that with his ex-girlfriend, a future may still be possible for to carve out for himself.
As I said at the start, this is a melancholy novel, as all of the characters, Frank, Jerry-Lee and their friends, seem to be lost in the modern world, waiting for fortune to tap them on the shoulder and give them the good life they want. They all live day-to-day, seeing no future for themselves. Setting the story in Reno, a gambling city, is apt for these characters, as they believe that the next turn of the card or the next race will give them what they want. Strangely, none of them think working for a living is the answer to all their problems. I found that the character of Jerry-Lee at times could be tiresome as he constantly whines about his life and the fact that Frank never confronts him about it strange as well, even indulging him with memories of their lives growing up, their neglectful father and the devoted mother who dies while both are still teenagers. Frank is too passive toward his brother. Some times I wanted Frank to grab Jerry-Lee and give him a good slap and tell Jerry-Lee to wake up to himself, to pick himself up and face things like an adult, but Frank never does, which was frustrating. May be because he, too, can't face things like an adult.
Over all, this was a good novel about characters that don't often get written about in modern fiction - poor, white, male urban trash. While not a pretty book, it does give the reader a look inside the lives of people who live on the margins of modern day society.