Ask a Bookseller: ‘The Left and the Lucky’

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.If you’ve read Allan Levi’s bestselling novel “Theo of Golden” — or you’re waiting for a copy to come available at the library — and you’re looking for the next book that will make you feel hopeful about the world, Diane Rineer of Rediscovered Bookshop in Boise, Idaho, suggests the novel, “The Left and the Lucky,” by Willy Vlautin. At the book’s heart is a friendship: a father/son-style relationship that forms between Eddie, who is a workaholic painter, and 8-year-old Russell, who lives next door. Eddie has lost somebody in his life, and he wants to make up for it any way he can. Russell is being badly bullied, both at school and by his teenage brother at home. He begins to linger around Eddie, who gives the boy small jobs to do and a listening ear. “Eddie doesn’t have much, but he does have a big heart,” says Rineer, “and by the end of the book, you just want to hug him.”“He’s helped so many people along the way in such big ways with what little he has. It’s just a feel-good story, and I feel like we need more Eddies in the world.”Rineer is a big fan of Vlautin’s novels, in general, and she says this most recent one has her thinking about the importance of helping people in whatever way you can.