Richie's Picks: A GOOD HORSE by Jane Smiley, Knopf, October 2010, 256p.,
ISBN: 978-0-375-86229-8; Libr. ISBN: 978-0-375-96228-8
"I have finally found a way to live just like I never could before
And I know I don't have much to give, but I can open any door.
Everybody knows the secret, everybody knows the score
I have finally found a way to live in the color of the Lord."
-- Eric Clapton
"I went upstairs and did my homework, then took a bath and went to bed.
As I was lying there, I could hear the front door slam through my open
window, and I knew that Daddy was going to check out the horses one last time.
I realized, of course, that I could pray. We prayed for all sorts of
things. But there were rules about praying, and one of them was that you could
not petition the Lord. You could not decide what you wanted and then pray
for that. You always had to pray for the right thing to happen, and, as
anyone could tell you, the right thing to happen wasn't always the thing you
wished for. Personally, I always wondered if breaking this rule about
petitioning the Lord meant that you were less likely to get whatever it was you
wanted than you would have been if you hadn't petitioned the Lord. Rules
were rules, as everyone knew, and breaking them was a risky business."
It is a pleasure to experience what Pulizer Prize-winning author Jane
Smiley brings to her writing for middle schoolers. A GOOD HORSE certainly has
a style that sets it apart.
I recently read and wrote about a cyber thriller for which I was
unfamiliar with some of the technical terminology and processes. Yes, it's a long
way topically from cyber coding on the run to weaving through a series of
jumps on a course while sitting on a horse but, as with that cyber thriller,
A GOOD HORSE is written in a manner that my lack of technical knowledge did
not interfere with my full enjoyment of the story. And while there might
be some young readers who become a bit restless with Smiley's descriptions
of Abby Lovitt's preparing for and then navigating the various jumps on her
horse, or the recollections of Abby's playing a adverbial charades game
during a sleep over, I really enjoyed how these details significantly add to
our understanding of Abby's world in the Sixties. I am similarly impressed
by the author's ability to repeatedly provide some real insights into
adolescence without becoming the least bit didactic:
"As for Alexis and Barbara, they were friendly, but they weren't my new
best friends or anything. They still bustled down the hall in the morning
rather than huddle with other kids around their lockers. They still sat at
their own table for lunch and didn't invite others to sit there, though they
were perfectly nice if anyone did. In fact, one of the amazing things
about the Goldman twins was that they didn't change -- they were always
themselves. Now that I'd been to their house, I saw that that was the way the
whole Goldman family was. Maybe if you always did what you wanted to do,
then you always were who you wanted to be."
A GOOD HORSE is a coming of age story set in northern California in the
Sixties. It is told from the point of view of eighth-grader Abby, who lives
with her strictly religious parents, and the horses they are raising.
Unfortunately for the family, a beautiful young colt named Jack -- who was born
on their farm and who is Abby's pride and joy -- might have ended up in
their hands (through no fault of theirs) as the result of a crime.
Abby's parents receive a series of letters from an investigator who is
looking into the claim that a mare that Abby's father purchased the previous
year on an out-of-state trip to buy more horses might have been part of a
group stolen from a ranch in Texas. The stolen mare that might or might not
be the same one purchased by Abby's father was in foal, having being bred
-- at considerable cost -- to a Belmont stakes winner. The question is
whether that (now-deceased) mare her dad purchased is, in fact, that stolen
mare, which would then give the victims of the theft an interest in the
beloved colt, possibly in both a legal and a moral sense.
To witness the struggle that Abby's parents go through at one point in
order to justify their permitting Abby to ride in a show on the Lord's day, is
to understand that these are people who won't be taking any moral
shortcuts or hiring a sharp lawyer for the sake of maintaining possession of the
colt.
As we also come to see, an avenue through which one can quite readily view
the differences between those of substantial wealth and those of more
modest means is by way of the world of horsemanship. We observe one of Abby's
peers being in the position to demand -- without a second thought or
hesitation -- her parent's acquisition of Black George, the Lovitt's finest
adult horse. This gelding is an animal into which Abby and her father have, on
a daily basis for years, poured considerable time, love, and energy. This
potential sale accentuates what we see about Abby's life -- how she does
not have a lot of clothes that fit her right for school, no less
properly-fitting attire for horse shows. The Lovitt family would profit
handsomely
from this potential transaction, but it is, nevertheless, an eye-opening
situation.
As is also the case with a scene in which Abby, during her stay-over with
the Goldman twins, experiences her first bagel, first poppy seeds, and
first lox.
I, myself, plead guilty to sometimes forgetting that not everyone in
America gets to grow up in a cosmopolitan community. While I am quite aware
that not everyone can afford to stop for just-out-of-the-oven bagels (and that
there certainly are not decent bagel places in all corners of the country)
I did find that I'd assumed that even back in the Sixties everyone at
least knew what they were. And so it made me (who grew up across town from
Holling Hoodhood) recognize the need to remember how diverse our country
really is (and was).
"'We don't get to keep the really good ones, no matter how much we like
them.' He caught my eye.
"I said, 'I know that, Daddy.'
"He said, 'We all know that.'
"Well, we did know that, but it was a lesson I kept having to learn."
This book is actually the sequel to Smiley's THE GEORGES AND THE JEWELS
which is set over the previous school year (when Abby is in seventh grade).
I certainly enjoyed this very different piece of historical fiction more
than enough to go back now and read the previous book next.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_
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FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he
will Pick their books. You can figure that any review was written after
reading and dog-earring a free copy received. Richie retains these review
copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools
and libraries.
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