Willy Vlautin has now produced three spoken word albums. Some of them connected to his novels, some of them standalone. As the first has a festive theme, and is narrated by Vlautin, who has also narrated some of the audiobooks of his longer novels. His delivery suits his characters, he inhabits the world weary, downtrodden people he writes about. And the first is a Christmas story.
‘A Jockey’s Christmas’ is a dark comedy about JD, a misfit, overweight, alcoholic jockey whose career has dried up. The story examines his adventures on a journey home to Reno to spend the Christmas holiday with his family. As a Reno native he brings the sense of place to the story that he does to his books and songs.
The story covers JD’s inability to hold on to money if there is anywhere to gamble it away, and his family’s concern for him, which ends up just feeding the habit by handing him money. I’ll not spoil the ending, as it’s an interesting, if ironic, take on the Christmas redemption theme. J.D.’s journey is one of self-destruction with bits of fleeting hope, punctuated by encounters with equally lost and lonely individuals, most of them from his own family.
As usual with his spoken word pieces there is music to support Vlautin’s narrative. In this case Paul Brainard of Richmond Fontaine on pedal steel and Ralph Huntley on accordion as well as Vlautin on guitar add to the melancholic atmosphere. His intention was for it to play like an old-time radio show, with music woven into the story, and it achieves that in spades.
There are two songs to wind up the album. Farnell Newton’s trumpet features on ‘The Track’ and the brief story of ‘The 5th Race’ could be the sketch for another story.
We looked at the second in the series of short audiobooks, ‘A Motorcycle for a Horse,’ as part of our feature on ‘Lean On Pete’ in 2022. It is very much a companion piece to that novel, with the warning that it contains spoilers for the book. The background music comes from the same players as ‘A Jockey’s Christmas.’
The third in the series is ‘The Kill Switch.’ This time the music is from The Delines, and far more prominent punctuating the narration with short introductions to each chapter rather than adding atmosphere behind the spoken word sections. There is also a new printed version of the story for 2024. In that Vlautin tells us that it is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel, with the working title ‘Russell and Eddie.’ The story has evolved from the audio version, but it is still the story of Eddie falling in love with and buying a vintage Pontiac Le Mans and matters arising from that. The music, including one song with Amy Boone is an afterthought, but as with everything The Delines touch well worth a listen.
Valutin’s familiar themes of economic hardship, resilience, and the unexpected bonds formed in the face of adversity.
The interactions between the characters are fascinating. Eddie is clearly a father figure to Russell. Russell’s nemesis Curtis and his exotic dancer mother lurk in the background, along with Eddie’s employee/sidekick Houston and his elderly neighbour Gladys. A lot happens in 40 pages and half an hour of narration, and while the story is consistent between the print and audio versions there has clearly been time for the story to mature. How it will morph into a novel is unclear as it is a very self-contained piece.
What all his short fiction shares with his longer works, and indeed his songs is the examination of the complexities of human relationships and the power of connection as part of overcoming adversity. He picks up the challenges faced by those living on the margins of society, reflecting on poverty, trauma, and the search for hope. If you have half an hour to spare between the turkey and mince pies, you could do far worse than spend it with Willy Vlautin’s short audio fiction.
