Lean On Pete

Willy Vlautin

Charley, the narrator and protagonist, is a 15-year-old boy with a fairly simple dream: he’d like a home with some hot food on the table, a high school he can attend for more than part of a year, and some structure to his life.

But as the son of an affectionate but negligent single father, a rolling stone who works his way through warehouses across the Pacific Northwest and entertains a series of temporary girlfriends as he goes, this isn’t an option. Charley finds he’s on his own for much of the time — and often without enough to eat.

The novel opens as Charley and his Dad arrive in Portland, Oregon, where Charley takes a job at the local race track.

Once part of a vibrant racing network, Portland Meadows is now washed out; seemingly the last haven for has-been jockeys and worn-down horses.

This racetrack is at the scrub end of American horse racing; the animals are quarter horses, not thoroughbreds, and the trainer engages in cruel, illegal and barely profitable practices.

But it is here that Charley, a decent enough kid, meets Pete, an old race-horse who becomes his companion as, following a set of tragic circumstances, the youngster is forced to make his own way in the world. When Pete’s feet go bad and Del decides to sell him to a Mexican slaughterhouse, Charley decides to save the horse and the novel reveals itself as a modern retelling of Huckleberry Finn.

Gripping and absorbing as it is, this novel does not provide a comfortable picture of modern America, so, if you have kids, file it on the top shelf of the bookcase.