The multifaceted Willy Vlautin, whom many will know as singer, guitarist and main songwriter for the Portland band Richmond Fontaine and currently also in The Delines returns to his career as a writer, which he is cultivating little by little. And even more so if we wait for his translation. because after “Northline” y “Motel Life”if I’m not wrong this “The night always comes” it is the third of his nearly ten books to be translated. Although the point is that we have it here, and it’s more than fine.
“The night always comes” It is not a costumbrist novel. It’s not a black novel either. But it is both things at the same time. Because Vlautin masterfully plays with his characters, especially with Lynette, his protagonist, who represents the complete opposite of what someone who idealizes the United States might think. The New York Times assures that she does it in a more direct way than Carver and less naive than Bukowski, and they are two statements as resounding as they are true.
Vlautin goes to the heart of the matter, but strips them of romanticism. We know Lynette soon, but we discover her throughout all her pages. We do it while we see how she tries to get out of a conflict that she has to resolve in just forty-eight hours, and in which gangsters, drug dealers, rapists, prostitutes and other personnel of dubious fur are mixed.
Willy Vlautin solves the volume well, although there comes a time when that is almost the least of it, because he has already caught you in his reading and more than what happens to Lynette, what happened in his past ends up intriguing you more than his future . He is not surprised that all is praise for this book. He deserves them.