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Summary
Meet Horace Hopper, a twenty-one-year-old farm hand in Tonopah, Nevada, who works for Mr Reece and his wife, the nearest thing he’s had to family in years.
But Horace, half-white half-Paiute Indian, dreams of bigger things. Leaving behind the farm and its fragile stability, he heads South to re-invent himself as the Mexican boxer Hector Hidalgo. Slowly, painfully, the possibility emerges that his dreams might not just be the delusions of a lost soul… but at what cost, and what of those he’s left behind?
Exploring the fringes of contemporary America, Don’t Skip Out on Me is an extraordinary work of compassion – a novel about the need for human connection and understanding – and essential reading, now more than ever.
WillyVlautin
Willy Vlautin has published seven previous novels, most recently The Horse, which was just named as a finalist for the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Award. The Motel Life and Lean on Pete were both turned into acclaimed feature films, in 2012 and 2017, the latter of which was directed by Andrew Haigh. Netflix’s adaptation of The Night Always Comes is…
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