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    Don't Skip Out on Me: A Novel
    Don't Skip Out on Me: A Novel
    Don't Skip Out on Me: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Don't Skip Out on Me: A Novel

    Written by Willy Vlautin

    Narrated by Willy Vlautin

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A FINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD

    Horace Hopper is a half-Paiute, half-Irish ranch hand who wants to be somebody. He's spent most of his life on the ranch of his kindly guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Reese, herding sheep alone in the mountains. But while the Reeses treat him like a son, Horace can't shake the shame he feels from being abandoned by his parents. He decides to leave the only loving home he’s known to prove his worth by training to become a boxer.

    Mr. Reese is holding on to a way of life that is no longer sustainable. He’s a seventy-two-year-old rancher with a bad back. He’s not sure how he’ll keep things going without Horace but he knows the boy must find his own way.

    Coming down from the mountains of Nevada to the unforgiving desert heat of Tucson, Horace finds a trainer and begins to get fights. His journey to become a champion brings him to boxing rings of Mexico and finally, to the seedy streets of Las Vegas, where Horace learns he can’t change who he is or outrun his destiny. 

    Willy Vlautin writes from America's soul, chronicling the lives of those who are downtrodden and forgotten with profound tenderness. Don't Skip Out on Me is a beautiful, wrenching story about one man's search for identity and belonging that will make you consider those around you differently.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateFeb 13, 2018
    ISBN9780062799463
    Author

    Willy Vlautin

    Willy Vlautin is the author of the novels The Motel Life, Northline, Lean on Pete, The Free, Don’t Skip Out on Me, and The Night Always Comes. He is the founding member of the bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines.

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    Reviews for Don't Skip Out on Me

    4/5

    87 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Indian/Irish Horace Hooper was abandoned by his parents as a baby and raised by his smoking and drinking grandmother. When she was dying he was taken in the by the Reeses, an older couple who ran a sheep ranch. Horace wants to be a boxer. A Mexican boxer. He adopts the name Hector Hidalgo, tries to learn Spanish and eats Mexican food. He also moves to Tucson and finds a trainer, but not a good one. Horace hits hard, but takes a lot of hits too. He turns pro and wins a few fights but is damaged and feels a failure. "You were raised to be ashamed of yourself," Mr. Reese tells him after finding Horace in Las Vegas, where he's retreated to lick his wounds. Horace feels lost, alone and worthless. The ending is brutal and tragic.
    • 5/5
      An author reading a book is one of my favorite things; Vlautin is the perfect narrator for his books. Note: never expect a happy ending from him but read him anyway!!!
    • 3/5
      Tragic story of a young man from Nevada who leaves home and travels to Arizona to become a boxer. He has had a difficult family life. After he is abandoned by his parents, a ranching family takes him in. He wants to make something of himself. He desires to be a champion.

      The prose is spare, and the dialogue plentiful. The author conveys a realistic sense of the landscape of the high desert. The relationship between the protagonist and rancher is particularly touching. The brutality of boxing is vividly described. The tone is melancholy. I enjoyed the first half more than the second. I would not recommend this book to anyone currently feeling depressed.

      I listened to the audiobook, adequately read by the author. He does not vary his voice much, so the narration feels a bit lackluster.
    • 4/5
      This is a heartbreaking story of a young man, Horace, who works for Mr. and Mrs. Reese who are ranchers. However, Horace dreams of being a championship boxer. The Reeses beg him to stay but he wants to pursue his dream. Western themed novels, and boxing isn’t my thing, but this story draws you in. You ache for the characters and the poor decisions they make, and the feeling of hopelessness comes through.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful story about hard lives. Horace spoke to me.
    • 5/5
      Vlautin transports his readers to a ranch in Nevada where young Horace makes some life choices while the reader is completely engrossed and loving Horace. The connection to the characters is due to the amazing writing. It's a rare novel that can completely grip me where I forget I'm reading a novel. His descriptions are equally unforgettable. A novel I will recommend to many. As for the ending, it was completely unexpected and I like that in a novel.
    • 4/5
      There are two main threads in this novel - a young man (Horace) who wants to be a champion boxer and (Mr Reese) an elderly man trying to hold onto his ranch late in life as his health wanes. Horace has a inferiority complex as he was abandoned by his parents as a child and was raised by the Reeses. However, he is driven to prove himself even though Mr. Reese would love if he would stay and help him. The book reads like a movie script which I would love to see produced.
    • 4/5
      Horace Hopper is a half-Native American ranch hand, working for an old couple, Mr. & Mrs. Reese, who have been his guardians, since he was abandoned, as a young boy. Horace loves working on the Nevada ranch, tending the sheep, but he can't shake his dream of becoming a champion boxer. Despite the sage and kindly protestations, from Mr. Reese, Horace leaves the ranch, moves to Arizona and pursues this boxing quest, trying to find his own identity and make something of himself. This is not a Hallmark Special, so he quickly finds himself immersed in a tough, unrelenting reality of poverty and brutal beatings. This is not as bleak as it sounds, but I don't want to sugar-coat it. There is a split narrative going on here, one with Horace and one with Mr. Reese, and the latter is the one that brings a well-needed sense of love and hope, the perfect father-figure for Horace. I have been wanting to read Vlautin for several years now, and I can now, see why. He is a natural storyteller and I love reading western-themed novels.
    • 4/5
      Willy Vlautin breaks my heart. This is a plain spoken novel set in Nevada about Horace, a 21-year old young man of Paiute-Irish heritage. His mother essentially gave up raising him so he stayed with his grandmother until she died and then stayed with a caring sheep rancher and his wife. Horace is a hard-working but naive kid with deep feelings of worthlessness. His dream and whole purpose in life is to create a new persona and heritage for himself as a championship boxer (from Mexico). He feels driven to leave the safe, isolated ranch and find his destiny on his own in the 'big' city. Vlautin is a writer that excels at describing everyday folks and hard-scrabble lives. Good novel from a talented writer/ musician. This book has a companion soundtrack.
    • 4/5
      Willy Vlautin is a dirty realist. He writes lean, straightforward narratives about sentimental characters struggling through honorable ambitions. His stories always seem to conclude in the most heartbreaking manner.In Don’t Skip Out On Me he proves once again, that while searching for a sense of identity and place in our lifetime, not everyone is strong enough to succeed.Horace Hopper, a hired ranch hand who is half-Paiute and half-Irish, aspires to become a Mexican champion boxer. His parents abandoned him at a young age and he believes he is a nobody – “an Indian who wasn’t an Indian and a white kid who looked like an Indian.” As the title eludes to, he skips out of the ranch life to pursue his boxing career, leaving behind the elderly couple who took him in as a surrogate son.Hopper lives in deep misery. His self-hatred leads him to change his name to Hector Hidalgo. He hopes his identity will be “cut away and left to disappear into nothingness.” After each boxing bout, he continues to read his book on how to “Build the Campion Inside You: Believe, Overcome, Aspire, Triumph – B.O.A.T.” He wants to achieve this mantra “brick by brick.” However, brick boats do only one thing.Meanwhile, the elderly rancher who treated Hopper as an adopted son, is developing back problems. He goes to the city searching for him and hopes to bring the boy home as the ranch’s future depends upon it.Through missteps and lost opportunities the two characters do meet up and readers may think Hopper’s alienation will gradually be replaced by a sense of belonging. But this is a Vlautin novel where slow dreadful changes do occur, yet not in the expected trajectory.
    • 4/5
      Vlautin is an American novelist of the West; the working-class; and rural/small town US. He is in the tradition of Steinbeck and Dos Passos. His novel "Lean On Pete" was made into a movie recently. This is his most recent novel, and it is not his best. It's about a young half Paiute and half Irish ranch-hand, with ambitions to prove himself by becoming a boxer. He needs to prove himself worthy because of being abandoned by his parents at a young age. The boxing scenes are brutally violent, and the whole story is just so sad.Vlautin tends to be a bit heavy handed with the moral and with his political point of view. Even though I agree with him for the most part, that doesn't make for the best fiction. Vlautin lives in the Portland area and is part of the band, Richmond Fontaine. This book (but unfortunately not the ERC) comes with a CD that he feels accompanies the story. If you are a fan, read and listen. But I have to warn you, prepare for heartbreak. If you are new to Vlautin, I would recommend [The Free]; which I feel is a far better book.
    • 5/5
      The best book I have read in more than a year. Wonderful.
    • 4/5
      One thing you always take away from a Willy Vlautin novel: It’d be easier for people – beleaguered by fate and interfered with by emotions – to do the right thing, if only someone could make clear to them what the right thing is.Rules and truth are poor guidance, prone as they are to contradiction.Is it “Love your neighbor” or “survival of the fittest”?Is it “Go west, young man” or “there’s no place like home”?“Feel your inner child” or “Man up”?Young Horace Hopper, scarred by childhood abandonment and confused about racial identity, needs to make a choice between conflicting guidance. There’s his de facto father “Mr. Reese” trying to persuade Horace with gentle persistence that the ranch they live on is Horace’s ideal life-long home… where he is skilled and loved and wanted. But then there’s the self-help book Horace discovered and memorized as a kid, with the message that “champions” re-invent themselves and sally forth into the world for success and glory.We watch poor Horace try to come to terms with this conflict. And, because Vlautin, as always, crafts his characters with exquisite realism, we ache with every wrong choice Horace makes; celebrate with every small victory.This may not be the very very best of Willy Vlautin, but it is Vlautin doing what he does best: telling a simple, sad/hopeful story about an uncharmed life and the hard struggle to figure out what’s right.
    • 4/5
      A great read about unconditional love, a battle between self love and self doubt and chasing your dreams. Fair warning, the ending left me actually saying "what the sh*t?!"
    • 5/5
      This one knocked my socks off!!! Stark and spare prose gives us the story of Horace Hopper, half Paiute Native American and half Irish. An old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Reese, are his guardians, his birth mom and dad having written him out of their lives. Horace had been shunted to a grandmother who I felt was emotionally abusive and distant, damaging his fragile psyche. He comes to live with the Reeses on their sheep ranch in Nevada, is considered almost the son of the couple, and works as a ranch hand. Having a talent for boxing and big dreams of succeeding as a professional, Horace wants to "try his wings" as a professional boxer. He leaves the ranch with the Reeses' blessing and strikes out on his own--living his own life, fighting in Arizona, Mexico, and Texas under the alias of "Hector Hidalgo." He discovers that the outside world is cruel; people can be manipulative, bigoted, and deceitful. He is torn about returning to his loving guardians because of his feelings of inadequacy and having failed them. The story conflates the Biblical parables of the shepherd searching for the one lost sheep with Mr. Reese searching for Horace and the first part of the Prodigal Son story, but set in the contemporary West. I wondered: is the sheep ranch a metaphor? The whole novel was touching and poignant. The character portraits were amazing--the naïve, sensitive, intense Horace and his unconditionally loving "father and mother." The whole novel was moving and unforgettable. Highly recommended.