9780062799463
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Don’t Skip Out on Me audiobook

  • By: Willy Vlautin
  • Narrator: Willy Vlautin
  • Category: Fiction, Sports
  • Length: 8 hours 5 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: February 13, 2018
  • Language: English
  • (1738 ratings)
(1738 ratings)
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Don’t Skip Out on Me Audiobook Summary

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.

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Don’t Skip Out on Me Audiobook Narrator

Willy Vlautin is the narrator of Don’t Skip Out on Me audiobook that was written by Willy Vlautin

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

About the Author(s) of Don’t Skip Out on Me

Willy Vlautin is the author of Don’t Skip Out on Me

Don’t Skip Out on Me Full Details

Narrator Willy Vlautin
Length 8 hours 5 minutes
Author Willy Vlautin
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date February 13, 2018
ISBN 9780062799463

Subjects

The publisher of the Don’t Skip Out on Me is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Fiction, Sports

Additional info

The publisher of the Don’t Skip Out on Me is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062799463.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Will

December 03, 2021

It looks like this review has succumbed to Murphy's law. In posting several reviews on 12/2/2021, the text for one was unintentionally pasted over the text for another. Sadly, the original Word file in which the review was written was lost, among many others, during a move from NY to PA in 2017. Sorry, my bad.Vlautin is a great writer. This is a moving tale about a young man with dreams of being a professional boxer, and an elderly couple who try their best to help him. Vlautin shows the vagaries of working class lives, with a lot of rough edges, and humanity. Vlautin is always worth reading. If, by some miracle the review reappears, I will re-post it here.

David

December 12, 2021

I liked this story very much. It was short, (maybe too short) and engaging. This is not a "feel good" kind of story. I would recommend it though. Its a fast read and holds the reader's attention. The writer doesn't use prose as a tool and keeps the reader rapt with the action of the story, not necessarily the character's voice. Its told in the point of view of two struggling characters one at the end of his life and one just starting out. The one just starting out Horace, is trying to find his way and is not taking good council from his elder and mentor. The juxtaposition is both intriguing and engaging.It is an interesting choice of characters and plot line and a risky under taking. Eighty percent of women comprise the reading community. This is the story of a boy's journey and when it comes to women there are no punches pulled. The scene in Mexico with the girl is not mitigated enough with Horace's interior regret and we like him a little less. And there was also the way the relationship with his quasi-girlfriend is handled by the story (not by Horace), I think it is still a huge risk with women readers (subjective call, who am I criticize such a great author.). Although with the number of ratings, the number of reviews, and the overall rating the author is doing quite well with this story. The overall goal is to have the reader thinking about the characters and the story long after the book ends and with me mission accomplished.David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.

Jill

September 02, 2017

It would be tempting to characterize Willy Vlautin’s new novel as a contemporary western story or a quintessentially American story or even a salute to Kent Haruf or even John Steinbeck. But at the end of the day, I believe it is a love story—an unconventional love story, perhaps, but at its heart, a love story nonetheless.Horace Hopper is a half-Palute ranch hand, a young man who may be irreparably broken after being abandoned by his parents and ultimately, left in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Reese, who own a ranch. There is a true love between Horace and Mr. Reese, who loves him like a son and believes in giving him the freedom to find his own way.When Horace declares that he wants to be a world-renowned lightweight boxer, Mr. Reese lets him go, knowing that the road ahead will be hard and convinced that he will eventually make his way back to the ranching life. What Mr. Reese doesn’t reckon on is Horace’s infinite capacity for self-punishment and his extreme yearning to “be somebody” and prove himself.Mr. Reese is 72 years old with a bad back and a love for ranching. Horace wants to reach back to him but can’t let himself be perceived as a failure. Don’t Skip Out On Me lays bare this dynamic between surrogate father and son, and draws a powerful picture of a wounded boy running on empty, caught within the seedy world of boxing yet unable to let go of his unrealistic dream. Within this spare, muscular prose, there is poignancy and there is heartbreak. I must add that Willy Vlautin is a member of the Richmond Fontaine band and intermittently while reading this, I played his soundtrack album, which deepened the immersion into Horace’s world. Willy Vlautin is the real deal.

William

November 27, 2017

Another melancholy masterpiece from Vlautin. Got an advance copy a few weeks ago and devoured it. Put it down for a while and picked it up again this weekend and read more slowly. Hit even harder this time. Packed full of great details and beautiful place writing. For my money, no one sets characters adrift in the world like Vlautin. I love the way his characters wander, looking for something, hoping for something, some connection or direction. More than anything, I'd say, this one's about identity and fighting through the feeling of being lost. The places in this novel--the ranch and mountains, the sad casinos and boxing arenas in the Southwest and Mexico, the drunken whirlwinds of Vegas and Tijuana, the hole-in-the-wall apartments, the tire shops and gyms and day labor construction sites, the fast food joints, the liquor stores where checks are cashed, the alleys where alcoholics flop--reek of desperation and destitution and some kind of sad beauty. Vlautin's lonely people are just scraping by--some good-hearted, some mean and bitter and ruined, all broken. Horace and Mr. Reese are full and alive on the page. I love them both. Vlautin's my favorite writer for a lot of reasons, but chief among them is how hard I fall for his characters, how much I care about them, how I worry about them long after I'm done reading. There's just so much heart here. This is a great Western and a great boxing novel and, above all, a great American novel about empathy and identity and yearning. Truly a stunner and a heartbreaker. Also: I wish more than anything that Kelly Reichardt would adapt this into a film--she's a perfect match for Vlautin, and DON'T SKIP OUT ON ME operates in the same territory as her recent masterpiece, CERTAIN WOMEN.

Jovana

December 06, 2022

4,5 ⭐️ Dit boek raakte me meer dan ik van te voren had gedacht. De eenzaamheid uit dit boek was wat me vooral overviel, die zo goed beschreven was dat je hem zelf heel erg voelde. En dit ondanks de liefde die er ook was, en het gevecht misschien nog wel ondraaglijker maakte. Erg onder de indruk. Ik ga zeker meer van Willy Vlautin lezen.

Paltia

January 02, 2020

One of the saddest take me home books I’ve ever read.

Lou

December 06, 2018

You will be transported into the world of Horace, he wants to be a Mexican champion fighter and ultimately he is trying to find himself in his own destiny. Horace’s starting point of this journey is in a ranch as a worker, a herder and a helping hand to a warm and good hearted couple Mr and Mrs Reece in Tonopah, Nevada, they had taken him under their wings from a teen and into their hearts he had a place. He wants to breakout and make it big, wants to be a warrior toe to toe in the ring like many past and present Mexican boxers he loved and so he sets out on to fighting at the Arizona Golden Gloves championships in Mesa. He wants to breakthrough to another level and make something more with a strategy called B.O.A.T, it is a book on motivations and making it, and in his pursuit of happiness in figuring out something greater you walk with him on this road in his falls and gains and the decisions he makes. This is a nice little treat of a human struggle, an alternative American dream, against the grain, against the odds and histories.A life of a few big hearted underdogs, undercards, and a few good men, a few memorable characters within a poignant haunting tale told with simplicity and heart one that would successfully stay for a time after the reader closes the story for good but work its own magic in the readers heart and mind.Excerpts and author singing with guitar @ < a href="https://more2read.com/review/dont-ski...

Andy

March 22, 2018

This isn’t as dark as Vlautin’s other novels, perhaps he is mellowing as he gets older, but still very much has his trademark on it. It is the story of 20 year old Horace Hopper, a half Paiute Indian, half white ranch hand whose ambition is to become a Mexican boxer, and Mr. Reese, a 72 year old Nevada ranch owner. Hopper leaves the ranch to compete for the Arizona Golden Gloves competition and the novel follows their now separate lives. Boxing has never greatly appealed to me, but there is some good writing about it, this included. I think mainly also of Jack London’s short story, A Piece Of Steak . But it’s Reece’s story here in which Vlautin is at his strongest, particularly the scenes in which the two Mexican boys hitch a ride in the back of his truck, and when he goes fishing with his friend and contemplates retirement with his dogs. For me the strongest themes are loneliness and ageing, making life changing decisions and taking opportunities. B.O.A.T as Reece calls it. Advance warning also, that rare for a Vlautin novel, its something of a tear-jerker.

Carla

March 18, 2018

There has often been authors that I've not heard of before, and picked up one of their books, and been immediately drawn to their writing. It's often simple prose, that's so poignant, that my heart aches. This is such an author and story. I've never heard of Willy Vlautin, but will seek out his other work now! This book is about ranch hand Horace, who has always had an identity crisis. He wants to reinvent himself as a tough Mexican boxer. His trials and tribulations are so real, you feel you know him. The characterizations in this novel as so well developed that I laughed, cried, and my heart ached throughout. This was written with such tenderness, it stole my heart.

Wendy

April 12, 2018

I need to write a review on this, but I just finished it and I'm busy picking up the pieces of my shattered heart. What a beautiful, haunting, heartbreaking novel!4/12/18: Just had the opportunity to meet the author at a book talk. What a great guy and I loved the story behind his novels. He even played guitar and sang a few songs that he wrote to go with the story. Looking forward to reading more of his books!

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