A FINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD An ALA Notable Book From award-winning author Willy Vlautin, comes this moving novel about a young ranch hand who goes on a quest to become a champion boxer to prove his worth.  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. “Willy Vlautin has been literature’s best-kept secret for far too long. He may well be our own Steinbeck, but with a haunting steel-guitar sensibility all his own.” - Shelf Awareness “Vlautin’s sparse, plan sentences are well-matched to the brusque world he depicts. At the same time, his compassion for his characters never wavers.” - Sunday Times (London) “Vlautin’s latest novel…inches ever closer to a literary equivalent of his unrivalled ability to make us believe in the characters in his songs long after they’ve stopped believing in themselves.” - Yorkshire Evening Post “An emotionally wrenching story of a ranch hand who dreams of being a championship boxer and an elderly couple trying to hold on in central Nevada.” - Oregonian “Vlautin’s prose is deceptively simple, his clipped descriptions loaded with meaning. The narrative is as unsparing as Hopper’s fights, but what stays standing is a profound sense of hope, a hope that drives society’s downtrodden and provides the theme for much of Vlautin’s work.” - Financial Times “Riveting…Vlautin’s colorful characters inhabit both lonely Nevada ranch landscapes and gritty city scenes. Their world is painted with unflinching reality and raw emotion, yet also with compassion and heart, creating a compelling read.” - Christian Science Monitor “In this climate, a writer like Willy Vlautin seems like one of the last souls left standing on trad-narrative’s working-class battlements. He’s the literary version of a Neil Young or a Tom Petty, bearing a ragged standard for empathy, compassion and decency, defending notions of the story as a sorting office for the soul. In other words, he’s a throwback to a generation of novelists who still championed the underclass and promoted socialist values in fiction: everyone from John Steinbeck to Nelson Algren, or, more latterly, William Kennedy or Annie Proulx.” - Irish Times “[T]here’s a distinct sense of foreboding in the air as Vlautin slowly lets this poignant tale unwind to its inevitable, heartbreaking conclusion. A powerful, haunting portrayal of lives rendered in unflinching, understated prose.” - Kirkus Reviews “(The book is) written in the sort of scorched, bare-bones prose, stripped of metaphors and similes, that has won him fans such as Roddy Doyle, Donna Tartt and Colm Tóibín.” - The Guardian “Vlautin is on to something about what’s wrong with America, and with many Americans, especially in the age of Trump...” - Spectator UK “(Willy Vlautin) is the literary version of a Neil Young or a Tom Petty, bearing a ragged standard for empathy, compassion and decency, defending notions of the story as a sorting office for the soul. “ - Irish Times ‘Willy Vlautin is the poet laureate of the downtrodden and disenfranchised underclass of American society, detailing with real empathy and insight the daily struggle of his characters in modern society.” - Big Issue “The world needs more Willy Vlautin, and Dont’ Skip Out on Me is his best novel yet.”   - Jonathan Evison, author of This is Your Life, Harriet Chance and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving “No one anywhere writes as beautifully about people whose stories stay close to the dirt. Willy Vlautin is a secular—and thus real and profoundly useful—saint.” - Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Book of Joan “Vlautin writes with patience, tenderness, and a sharp eye toward the subtle things that can wear a person down — the fights we don’t know we’re losing until it’s already too late.” - Los Angeles Rev