{"id":157540,"date":"2026-04-10T08:51:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=157540"},"modified":"2026-04-10T12:05:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:05:04","slug":"thacker-mountain-radio-hour-and-square-books-presents-willy-vlautin-for-the-left-and-the-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/thacker-mountain-radio-hour-and-square-books-presents-willy-vlautin-for-the-left-and-the-lucky\/","title":{"rendered":"Thacker Mountain Radio Hour and Square Books presents Willy Vlautin for “The Left and the Lucky”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 6pm @ The Powerhouse<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cOne of America\u2019s greatest storytellers.\u201d\u2014 Jonathan Evison<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The acclaimed Willy Vlautin<\/strong> returns with a heartbreaking and tender novel about two young brothers, the vicissitudes of fate, and unexpected connection\u2014a beautiful and bittersweet portrait that illuminates the power of friendship and how it can save lives in multiple ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eddie Wilkens is a workaholic house painter in his early forties. His wife has left him to her regret, and his main employee, Houston, is a loafer and scoundrel who barely shows up for work. Unassuming and self-reliant, Eddie is a thoughtful man who rarely gets angry, despite life’s frequent provocations, but he is ruled by a guilt that he has carried for nearly twenty years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next door, a woman and her two sons move in with her frail and aging mother. The youngest boy, Russell, eight-years-old, is quiet and small for his age and lives in constant terror of his increasingly lost and troubled fifteen-year-old brother, Curtis. As their mother struggles to keep the family together and the grandmother\u2019s health begins to falter they find themselves unable to protect Russell and themselves from Curtis\u2019s cruelty, which threatens to explode in frenetic violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though neither knows it, Russell and Eddie will become each other\u2019s saving grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a writer revered for his thoughtful and compassionate portrayal of realistic American life, The Left and the Lucky <\/strong><\/em>is a heartbreakingly honest examination of how circumstance shapes our lives, and how the luck of finding someone who needs us can transcend bitter loneliness and prevent us from giving up on dreaming of a better life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Willy Vlautin is the author of the novels The Motel Life, Northline, Lean on Pete, The Free, Don\u2019t Skip Out on Me, The Night Always Comes, <\/strong><\/em>and<\/strong>The Horse<\/strong><\/em>. He is the founding member of the bands Richmond Fontaine <\/strong>and The Delines.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 6pm @ The Powerhouse \u201cOne of America\u2019s greatest storytellers.\u201d\u2014 Jonathan Evison The acclaimed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":157543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4934,2239,25019],"tags":[34034,34029,34032,34031,34037,34033,34036,34028,34030,34035,753,30686],"class_list":["post-157540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-local-literary-events","category-thacker-mountain-radio","tag-dont-skip-out-on-me","tag-jonathan-evison","tag-lean-on-pete","tag-northline","tag-richmond-fontaine-and-the-delines","tag-the-free","tag-the-horse","tag-the-left-and-the-lucky","tag-the-motel-life","tag-the-night-always-comes","tag-tlv","tag-willy-vlautin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/042326-tmr-willy-vlautin-left-and-lucky.png?fit=295%2C295&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157540"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157627,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157540\/revisions\/157627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}