Willy Vlautin – The Horse – Book Review
by Killian Laher

Willy Vlautin has carved out a fine career as a novelist, a chronicler of pain and flawed, damaged people, who never quite reach redemption in his books.  His latest, The Horse, is a tale of Al Ward, a musician with a chequered career.  Not a glamorous rock star, but a working, jobbing musician, touring hard and struggling to make ends meet.  The story flips back and forth between the forays into the past, and the present day, where one day a blind horse shows up in the middle of nowhere, where Ward lives, and won’t leave.  The journeys into the past paint the picture of a lived life, and cast light on how Ward has come to live in seemingly desperate conditions.  He has got to the stage where he buries himself in drink, and the hangover comes calling in the form of flashbacks while blacking out or even more drinking.

It’s an unusual and unpredictable tale that will keep you interested through 200 odd pages, and the main character’s realisation that during his whole life, he has never really figured anything out, except for writing songs.  The almost relentless bad luck, peppered with occasional glimmers of hope makes for a compelling read. Fans of Willy Vlautin’s writing will devour this, yet you won’t want this book to finish.  A beautiful, poetic novel.