Willy Vlautin talks about a friend's suicide and its affect on his writing.
Vlautin talks about one of his characters as an artist.

Willy Vlautin is an "aw, shucks" kind of guy.

He likes simple pleasures like doughnut shops, horse races, Western shirts and John Steinbeck. If you try to compliment him on the publication of his first book, he'll probably say he's just lucky. But "The Motel Life," his debut novel that manages to be both heartbreaking and inspirational is such a well-crafted book that it's obvious his success is much deserved.

It's the story of Frank and Jerry Lee Flannigan, two brothers with nothing but each other and a history of tragic luck. Frank is a lonely but hopeful storyteller and Jerry Lee is a one-legged body of despair with a talent for napkin doodles and painful memories of a terrible accident that haunts him every day.

___

BIG IN EUROPE

Mostly known in music circles, Vlautin has played guitar and sung for Americana-style Portland band Richmond Fontaine for a dozen years. Although the band's popularity has been hit and miss in the states, it's a different story for Vlautin and company in Europe. There, they play to packed venues and get five star reviews -- and it's where "The Motel Life" was first published in 2006.

It turns out that this isn't the first novel that Vlautin has written. A few years back, while on tour, someone stole his computer, which Vlautin says had "a couple of bad novels" on it. Vlautin had some of the work on floppy discs but had to pay someone $500 to get the discs into a workable format.

Like the characters in "The Motel Life," Vlautin takes the blame with an embarrassed smile. "I was stupid. I had a 300-page heavy duty edit that I never saved. I deserved it, you know."

___

RAYMOND CARVER SAVED MY LIFE

Born and bred in Reno, Nevada, Vlautin started writing songs as an early teen, influenced by X and The Blasters. When he was 20, he heard a Paul Kelly song based on a Raymond Carver story. "I found the book that it was from and it changed my life," he says.

"I think it was because I didn't have a job and I was living in my girlfriend's parents garage and they all had jobs and I felt like how I perceived Carver felt, like a bum or a loser. I probably started writing stories a week after I read it and they were so dark. Everyone was getting killed or killing themselves. It saved my life in a way but almost did me in."

Vlautin started sending those stories out in his early 20s.

"I was obsessed with getting one published and then I'd read the story after it came out and realize how bad it was. So I stopped sending stuff out. Then I was taking this night class for writing and I asked my teacher how long a novel was, and she said about 120 pages. So I went home and I wrote a 120-page story. At page 121, I just said The End. And it was unreadable."

___

STALKING AN ARTIST

"The Motel Life" though, is far from unreadable. It's written in a good-natured tone, with a simple but hypnotic rhythm that seems as if it was grown in the Reno heat.

As he worked on the novel, Vlautin decided to adorn the story by commissioning comic illustrator Nate Beaty. "I wouldn't let him read the book. I saw what he was doing and I thought, these are great. But I was scared that if he read the book and didn't like it then he would quit. So I kept postponing that. I paid $20 each for a while and then it would be five for $200. For about a year I was kind of stalking him and I'm sure he didn't think anything would come of it. But he liked my band, so that's probably why he didn't think I was totally crazy."

One element of Vlautin's music and his novel is the bond of brothers. There are more than a few Richmond Fontaine songs about brothers being there for each other.

Vlautin points out that the familial bond in "The Motel Life" was important and personal for him. "I grew up with just my mom and my brother. My dad lived less than a mile away and I hardly ever saw him and that's why I don't write about fathers. My brother's four years older than me and I ended up putting him as a father figure. I wrote this because I needed two brothers to take care of each other and I needed a friend like that, unconditionally, and I couldn't have them fight."

___

DADDY ISSUES

Vlautin's strained relationship with his dad proved to be a constant struggle.

"He was gone from when I was three... As I got older, I realized he was a great guy but he wasn't much of a father. He's fun to drink beers with and one of the smartest guys I ever met. He was the only guy in my life who was ever really supportive of my music and my writing. I'd send him stories and he always saved them." His father died in 2003.

He describes his mother more warmly. "She worked the same job for thirty years. She went to all my football games and track meets and she didn't even like sports."

Vlautin's future looks to be busy. Richmond Fontaine's new album, "Thirteen Cities," is just out and he's already sold his next two books. A novel, "Northline," is already written. Vlautin hopes it will come with a soundtrack, by himself and bandmate Paul Brainard.

"I'm obsessed with the 'Paris, Texas' soundtrack. Whenever I listen to that, all that music and then the eight minutes of Harry Dean Stanton talking, it brings me back to that movie. That's what I wanted to do with this soundtrack."

___

Kevin Sampsell is asap's Book Pusher, reporting on the word scene from the inside. Sampsell is an event coordinator at Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. He also runs a micro empire called Future Tense Publishing.

___

___

Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .

©2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.