Horse Heaven

By Jane Smiley, 2000, Alfred A. Knopf, 561 pages
Reviewed by Sharon Stasiowski, Oct. 4, 2020

Full disclosure: I love animals of all shapes and sizes, domestic and wild, but I have a special place in my heart for horses, and thoroughbreds are my favorites.

I have followed thoroughbred racing for years. I know all the good, bad and ugly about the business, but I can't help feeling joy watching them run.

Yes, I did have a poster in our living room of Secretariat running down the stretch in the '70s. And I do cry at the end of "Electric Horseman" when Robert Redford turns Rising Star loose in the canyon.

I have read one other book by Jane Smiley, and I did not like it. However, she did win the Pulitzer Prize for it, "A Thousand Acres," so who am I to judge?

I couldn't resist this novel. It has a cast of characters listed at the beginning, which always means there will be many people to keep up with.

This is a book about the first three years in the lives of several horses, and it includes the tales of their owners, trainers, assistants, veterinarians and other people and horses who come in and out of their lives. They are all over the country: California, Florida, New York, Kentucky and several other places.

The author jumps around geographically, telling the stories from different perspectives in chapters that are not long. At first it was very hard to keep track of who was who, but then, what else is a list of the cast of characters for? However, they were fun, sad, hopeful, informative and always involved the horses.

As I read, I found myself building a relationship with the characters and the horses. A couple of the people are not ones I would care to know, some are a little or a lot strange, and others I grew to care very much about. In other words, they are just people, and the author allows you to spend time in the company of those who are involved in thoroughbred racing and all it entails.

It is not a short book, but the time is not wasted and by the end, I was completely charmed by it all. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read an entertaining story filled with wildly different people and horses, including my favorite character in the book, Justa Bob.