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108 ratings, 3.94 average rating, 45 reviews
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published
February 7th 2008
by Faber and Faber
binding
Paperback, 224 pages
isbn
0571235700
(isbn13: 9780571235704)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 170)
Read in October, 2008
I love an author that falls in love with his characters, and it was obvious that he did. Even though they're all fuck-ups! Again! Can't wait for his third book full of fuck-ups who break your heart!!!
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Read in February, 2008
This book started out so bleak. I mean, dusty wind-swept towns with no hope and lots of booze bleak. But then glimmers of hope, and glimmers of hope and the whole time: from bleak to hope, I was swept up in the storm of Allison's life. She moves from Vegas to Reno, fleeing her abusive boyfriend, her alcohol blackouts, and carrying a baby. Once in Reno, she finds that she hasn't escaped everything she fled. But life in Reno starts to look up, especially with the help of Paul Newman, who visits he...more
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This is a book that was better than his first book and maybe not as good as his third book will be.
He's stories are rich in plot and character and strong in realistic dialog.
Here is an author that rarely gets spoken of w/o his band being mentioned. so here's the mention, I recommend the following songs by Richmond Fountaine:
polaroid
Hallways
Barely losing
come to think of it, those are all from the same album Post to Wire, so why don't you just suck up and buy the whole dang thing?
*...more
He's stories are rich in plot and character and strong in realistic dialog.
Here is an author that rarely gets spoken of w/o his band being mentioned. so here's the mention, I recommend the following songs by Richmond Fountaine:
polaroid
Hallways
Barely losing
come to think of it, those are all from the same album Post to Wire, so why don't you just suck up and buy the whole dang thing?
*...more
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3 comments
Read in May, 2008
recommended to camilla by:
Bonnie
This book was exhausting. The story of a young woman living in Nevada working crappy jobs at casinos, getting drunk every day, and trying to get away from her brute of a boyfriend. I appreciated the writing, it sets the scene of the desert and the monotonous depressing lifestyle well. However, I was frustrated with how weak the female protagonist was. I felt a little better when I read the author interview in the back and he said he hated writing all the sex scenes where Allison is either forced...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Steve by:
PCFH
Vlautin knows how to create compelling characters, and he has skill writing dialog. This was an easy read, which surprised me because his characters are troubled and dark. His main character is especially interesting: Allison struggles with alcoholism, and panic attacks, and low self-esteem. She's made some bad choices in love and career, too. But she manages to find connections with other people who have their own problems and complications. Her inner conversations with an imaginary Paul Newman...more
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Read in July, 2008
Have you ever seen "Ruby in Paradise?" It's one of Ashley Judd's first movies. This book reminds me a lot of that movie--horribly depressing and very little happens.
Basically, the key here is life sucks, yet endures, so don't give up.
It's depressing as hell, but I still really enjoyed the book. You want to take Allison Johnson in your arms and let her know it's going to be all right. You want to help her.
Basically, the key here is life sucks, yet endures, so don't give up.
It's depressing as hell, but I still really enjoyed the book. You want to take Allison Johnson in your arms and let her know it's going to be all right. You want to help her.
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Read in November, 2008
Allison Johnson is an alcoholic who cuts herself to control frequent panic attacks, who has a skinhead neo-Nazi boyfriend who beats her up, and writes in her notebook that she is a horrible person and deserves to
be miserable. Somehow, she tries to change her life. She leaves Las Vegas
for Reno so she can escape her boyfriend. She may not have God but she
has Paul Newman who visits her to tell her that she is a good person
who should stay away from booze and should get her GED and even go ...more
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Read in July, 2008
Really enjoyed this one. Haven't listened to the soundtrack to the book yet but can't wait!
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Vlautin combines a hard look at some of society’s fringe members with a whimsical touch that makes it all go down much easier. Allison Johnson is in her twenties, with an abusive, skin-head boyfriend, Jimmy, a bad alcohol dependence and not exactly the highest opinion of herself. When she discovers that she is pregnant, Allison heads for Reno, desperate to get away from Jimmy, wanting to give birth there. She knows she is not up to raising a child, so gives it up for adoption and builds a smal...more
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I just finished Vlautin's The Motel Life and was so impressed I went out the next day and bought this one, his follow-up. Vlautin has an uncanny knack for creating characters you believe in and root for. Like his main character, Frank Flannagan, in Motel Life<i/>, <i>Northline's Allison Johnson is too emotionally crippled to prevent terrible things from happening to her. And yet, she does possess self-awareness and does do just enough to improve her conditions that we n...more
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Read in May, 2008
Plenty of heartbreak in this one, maybe enough for two books. The protagonist, Allison, is a young alcoholic dragging around a multitude of anxieties she can’t seem to shake. In the beginning of the book a speed-addled brute of a boyfriend has Allison caught, and not always metaphorically, in a relationship of menacing highs and lows. Amid thoughts of suicide, among other complications, Allison escapes and leaves town, heading out across Nevada on her own. The chapters are short and compact an...more
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I love Willy Vlautin's writing. Totally straightforward, unpretentious stories that rightly get compared to Carver. His last two books were set in Reno, and are about dead end people who you care about because they really want to be better than the alcoholics and fuck-ups that they've become in their early 20s. There's no romance to their rootless lifestyle, just a sadness that's real without being depressing. His books are heavily dialog based, which I think is a real skill too..the conversatio...more
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Read in August, 2008
Pour yourself a double. Lock the door and try to hide. But even when you keep everyone else out, you are stuck with yourself. Maybe Northline is something else, but I think it is a lot about being okay with one's self regardless of how piss poor you've lived your life or ridiculously awkward you might be.
Vlautin writes, "Everything makes better sense when you're in the middle of nowhere." This book keeps telling me to try, and when I do, I find out that Allison Johnson is right.
...more
Vlautin writes, "Everything makes better sense when you're in the middle of nowhere." This book keeps telling me to try, and when I do, I find out that Allison Johnson is right.
...more
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Read in February, 2008
I thought Vlautin's earlier book (Motel Life) had pleasantly sparse language, but with this novel he's pared it down even farther, with sentences and chapters that almost bark.
Additionally, the characters in this novel are far more believable, with their "loser" aspect on a very human level. Allison's lack of faith in herself, which at times made me want to yell at her, was offset by her delusions of Paul Newman, and of how he would say she was good, how she needed to carry on, ke...more
Additionally, the characters in this novel are far more believable, with their "loser" aspect on a very human level. Allison's lack of faith in herself, which at times made me want to yell at her, was offset by her delusions of Paul Newman, and of how he would say she was good, how she needed to carry on, ke...more
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Read in June, 2008
Willy Vlautin, who has demonstrated a palpable sense of young, sad men whose mistakes have brought only pain, sometimes disguised as chemical relief has shown that he has the ability to palpate the hearts of a young sad woman as well, and express what was there in her own voice. No idealized, oversexed characters here. Her best fortune was not meeting Jerry or Frank, who would have been tremendously sincere, but only carriers of their own viral bad times.
The book comes with an instrumental s...more
The book comes with an instrumental s...more
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Read in August, 2008
I first heard about this book when I read this great interview between two friends who met each other as aspiring writers.
Then I saw the author read from it and play some music at the best bookstore in the world.
It's incredibly brutal and upsetting at parts, but it's also written with such tenderness and the prose has that lean and mean American ...more
Then I saw the author read from it and play some music at the best bookstore in the world.
It's incredibly brutal and upsetting at parts, but it's also written with such tenderness and the prose has that lean and mean American ...more
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This is a very melancholy, sometimes brutal, and achingly human novel. He has been compared to Tom Waits, which I would agree with. He writes like a Gus Van Sant movie.
The back of the book has a very candid interview with the author, and, if you can believe this, a CD that Willy Vlautin himself composed and recorded with his band.
The gratuitous violence does bother me. I had started Vlautin's other novel, Hotel Life, but had to put it down because of the gore. Compared to a lot of tr...more
The back of the book has a very candid interview with the author, and, if you can believe this, a CD that Willy Vlautin himself composed and recorded with his band.
The gratuitous violence does bother me. I had started Vlautin's other novel, Hotel Life, but had to put it down because of the gore. Compared to a lot of tr...more
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Read in November, 2008
This book will touch a nerve in people who live in Reno or Las Vegas where dysfunction is so normal.
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Read in May, 2008
This is pretty harrowing tale, but Vlautin is a new writer (The Motel Life) that I really like, and despite the subject matter he got me interested and hooked right from the beginning. Northline is very similar (at least in plot) to Denis Johnson's Angels. Both are about women on the road and on the run from a lot of bad choices. Vlautin has a very simple style of writing but he's got a really good grasp of how people talk and behave. I thought The Motel Life was better but this book stays with ...more
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Read in October, 2008
This book was really well written and a nice surprise. A very sad story of a girl who doesn't think much of herself. She hangs out with her abusive boyfriend and finds herself pregnant so she leaves town. Certain subjects of this book are disturbing to me since I have children of my own. But I know this is just a story of fiction. This was a quick read and even though this book came with a CD, I haven't had time to listen to it just yet. I think you should check this guy Willy Vlautin out....more
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