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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Slog Commenter Book Report: PopTart Does Northline

posted by on August 26 at 14:34 PM

As you may remember, I brought a bunch of advance reader copies with me to Slog Happy. Everybody got books, and I promised to run the book reviews on Slog. Mr. Poe went first. Now it’s PopTart’s turn, which is appropriate since this Slog Commenter Book Report thing is her idea:

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Here is my book report on Northline by Willy Vlautin, a gritty realistic American novel that…blah, blah, blah. If you want the adjective-laced drivel about what a great American novel this is, check out Vlautin’s website, but this is a book report for Slog so I’m just going to skip right to the good stuff. Northline has drugs, heavy drinking, a skinhead party in the desert, a gay bashing of a not gay, awful sexual encounters, and Paul Newman.

Well, Paul Newman isn’t in the novel, per se. The main character, Allison Johnson, carries on imaginary conversations with him. It’s a plot device, get it? See she’s fleeing Las Vegas because of some shit like being pregnant and having a crazy boyfriend, and Paul Newman is her hero so she has imaginary conversations with him. I’m not sure he’d be my choice in the imaginary conversation department. But, whatever, it sort of works in the story.

The book is short; there are even a couple chapters that are only about half a page. The shortness works for me on account of my short attention span*.

Allison flees to Reno where she attempts to rebuild her life and meets some characters along the way and gets a couple of jobs and meets a guy and instead of riding off into the sunset they stand around and hold hands and watch an old casino implode.

My only complaint about Northline is that it just sort of ends with parts of the plot hanging out there, but gee, I guess that’s JUST LIKE gritty America, where you never do know what happens with your sister stranded in Mexico and if your crazy stalker boyfriend is about to appear and rain down some bad shit on your head.

The best part of the book is that with the first edition you get a soundtrack for the novel, composed by the author who is a member of an alternative country band, Richmond Fontaine, based in Portland Oregon. Maybe all authors should think about including a soundtrack for their novels. But, not all authors are accomplished musicians like Mr. Vlautin. So, maybe authors and bands could team up and create something the suits like to call “synergy.”

For example, Death Cab for Cutie’s song “I will Possess your Heart” would be the perfect accompaniment to Kate Brennan’s new book about being stalked, In His Sights.

But, I digress.

If you are looking for a short read where the main characters will make you feel vastly superior about your own life then Northline is for you.

Many thanks to PopTart and any errors in this book report should be blamed on the editor of the piece, which would be me.

* Hey I just finally read the last Harry Potter book and boy wasn’t that final chapter just stapled on and I can’t believe they’re making it into two movies, oh, umm, what was I talking about again?

RSS icon Comments

1

So, basically, PopTart, it's like a French film ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 26, 2008 3:02 PM
2

This book report thing is a great idea.

Posted by Greg | August 26, 2008 3:13 PM
3

I will actually read this book. Gimme.

Posted by Mr. Poe | August 26, 2008 3:15 PM
4

Mr. Poe, the book is yours the next time I see you.

Posted by PopTart | August 26, 2008 4:05 PM
5

Great book and great soundtrack. Will Vlautin is simply rad. His other book "The Motel Life" is really good as well.

Posted by Reno has legalized prostutition. | August 26, 2008 4:09 PM
6

I have it too, Poe.

Posted by w7ngman | August 26, 2008 4:48 PM
7

Paul - I like your idea and approach with this feature - refreshing! I hope others outside our slog poster echo chamber feel the same way

Posted by jackseattle | August 26, 2008 4:55 PM
8

I read the copy of this that Rainman gave to w7ngman a few months ago, and I thought it was awful. Not in a can't-get-through-it kind if way (I read it in one day and it was certainly absorbing), it was just, for lack of a better word, bad. The plot was terrible, and I didn't feel bad for Allison at all because she was so stupid, and everything that happened to her, aside from the incident that supposedly caused her issues, was her fault. I agree that the companion cd is a pretty neat idea, but I wouldn't recommend this book, and probably won't read anything else by this author.


Posted by Aislinn | August 26, 2008 5:41 PM
9

Oh, snap.

Posted by w7ngman | August 27, 2008 7:47 AM
10

I still wanna read it.

Posted by Mr. Poe | August 27, 2008 8:11 AM

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