It takes a great deal of faith to gear a novel this horse-besotted to the general public. Horse love is one of those things either you get or you don't, and for the vast majority of the populace, horse stories tend to read like porn written for 13-year-old girls. The good news, then, is that while a love of all things equine is not a prerequisite for enjoying Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven, a love of human perversity is. Racing, after all, is at worst a dangerous, asset-devouring folly and at best an anachronism, as one of her horse trainers notes:

The Industry Leaders had made it their personal mission to bring horse racing to the attention of the general public, with the NFL as their model and television as their medium of choice, which was fine with Farley, though his own view was that horse racing out at the track, newspaper reading, still photography, placing bets in person, and writing thank-you notes by hand were all related activities, and football, ESPN, video, on-line betting, and not writing thank-you notes at all were another set of related activities.

A crucial piece of information for Smiley fans is that, among her many novels, Horse Heaven most resembles Moo (and there's even a pig!). In fact, with these two books it appears that this versatile author has finally found a home in which to unpack her impressive gifts: that is, the sprawling, intricately plotted satirical novel. Her target in this case is not academia but horse racing--less commonly satirised but, here at least, just as fruitfully so. Wickedly knowing, dryly comic, the result is as much fun to read as it must have been to write.

None of which means that Horse Heaven is a casual read. For starters, one practically needs a racing form to keep track of its characters, particularly when their stories begin to overlap and converge in increasingly unlikely and pleasing ways. Perhaps it says something about the novel that the easiest figures to follow are the horses themselves: loutish Epic Steam, the "monster" colt; the winsome filly Residual; supernaturally focused Limitless; and trembling little Froney's Sis. And that's not to forget Horse Heaven's single most prepossessing character, Justa Bob--a little swaybacked, a little ewe-necked, but possessed of a fine sense of humour and an abiding disdain for winning races by anything but a nose.

Then there are the humans, including but not limited to socialite Rosalind Maybrick, her husband Dick (who manufactures "giant heavy metal objects" in "distant impoverished nation-like locations"), a Zen trainer, a crooked trainer, a rapper named Ho Ho Ice Chill, an animal psychic and a futurist scholar, as well as attendant jockeys, grooms and hangers-on. (Not to mention poor, ironically named Joy, a few years out of Moo U and still having problems relating.) It's a little frustrating to watch this cast come and go and fight for Smiley's attention; you glimpse them so vividly, and then they disappear for another hundred pages, and it breaks your heart.

But there are certainly worse problems a novel could have than characters to whom you grow overattached. A plot this convoluted would be one, if only it weren't so hard to stop reading. There are elements of magic realism, astounding coincidences, unabashed anthropomorphism. (At one point--while Justa Bob throws himself against his stall in sorrow at leaving his owner's tiny, wordless mother behind--this reviewer cried, "Shameless!" even as she began to tear up.) Improbably, it all works. Horse Heaven is a great, joyous, big-hearted entertainment, a stakes winner by any measure, and for both horse lovers and fans of Smiley's dry, character-based wit, a cause for celebration on par with winning the Triple Crown. --Mary Park

2005-10-06 Understand horses, understand yourself.

As someone whose password for amazon is one of their horse's names and date of birth, I do understand horses, or thought I did until I read this book. Reading this book has altered my view considerably on how I regard my own horses and ponies and has allowed me to acknowledge what I have really always known, that they are all individuals, that there is a key for each and everyone of them and that we have to find it or if we can't, find the human being who can find it. As with relationships, there is an ideal horse or pony for each of us, one that we understand and can respect. There is a passage where I think it is deidre talks about the effect that riders have on horses and then the faults they have are made by the riders. That if someone rides a horse on a tight rein, it becomes shorter and shorter in movement and then this is seen as the horse's problem, when really it is totally manmade. The horses themselves are not over emotionalised, I think Jane Smiley has done a good job of seeing the world through a horse's eyes and recently I acquired a 15 year old welsh mare who had spent all her life in a big grassy space and thanks to this book, I was far more aware of how she felt, more aware of how to please her and more patient with her and with myself. I think she was lucky to arrive just after I read this book and it gave me the confidence to deal with her in a calm and thoughtful manner. Too many so called horse people scream and shout and there is another passage in the book where it says that horses don't like loud or edgy people and they don't. I've seen it time and time again in my own ponies. They take a step back. The louder the people get, the less co-operation the horses have for them. Many insights like that have crystallised what I think and rather than read dozens of 'How to ride, train, do dressage with etc' or even the rash of behaviour books on the market, this book says it all. Jane is not sentimental, she acknowleges that horses, like people, have to do a job, not always comfortably, not always in the best circumstances. The horses themselves acknowledge they have to do a job.

I approached this book with extreme caution as nearly everyhting I read on horses irritates me enormously as most of it is written by people with tunnel vision and a lack of empathy. I wish I read this sooner.

As for the human characters, they too are truly sympathetically drawn. Jane does not criticise, she merely lets them behave and be themselves. Rosalind and her affair was so realistically drawn and the end of it, so unexpected, so likely and her love for her husband who at no time was let of the hook by the author, he remained himself and so did Roz, they just learnt to appreciate each other. So much more realistic than the undying love stuff of other books. Joy is exactly right for depression and again well-drawn and not romanticised, including how it hurts those round her. Deidre is a memorable character.
I learnt a lot about american racing from this book as well. But I also learnt a lot about myself.
And finally I shall be writing out the passage on if you don't take responsibility for your own actions someone else takes responsibility for you and using it with problem teenagers. It is the single most sensible and obvious statement I have heard on dysfunctional behaviour and should be written large in schools and counselling surgeries.