77 Words: “Lean on Pete” by Willy Vlautin

Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin (Harper, 2010) –

At first this writing is simple, straightforward, plain. But soon 15-year-old Charley’s voice has so fully filled the reader’s head that she sees her world as he would. And long after the book’s done, an image or word will bring it back.  Author Willy Vlautin, it seems, is both honest writer and canny hypnotist.  This search for family, sustained by love for an ailing racehorse, has the poetry, tragedy and history of any classical hero’s epic journey.

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