Here is Willy Vlautin’s The Horse, which is the story of Al Ward, a man in his final years, who finds a horse on his doorstep one morning. He’s not sure if the horse is a hallucination, but its presence triggers a lot of contemplation of life—the one he had and the one he didn’t have. The Horse is a novel, but it plays out like a well-worn memoir, a story that we easily tip into as we explore Al’s past to find out why he has ended up where he has. Recommended.
–A Good Book, Sumner, WA
Al Ward is flawed — alcoholism, a never quite good enough country guitarist and song writer. When a blind horse shows up at his isolated shack on a snowy, freezing night, the best of Al comes out. Yes, Al is flawed, but you’ll root for him.
–Karen Emmerling, Beach Books, Seaside, OR
There’s not another writer out there, living or dead, that I trust with my heart more than Willy Vlautin, and he breaks it every damn time. In Al Ward’s love and loss, in his decency, his pathos, and his struggle to endure, Vlautin has gifted us a paean to the power of song. The Horse is another classic from one of America’s greatest storytellers.
— Jonathan Evison, New York Times Bestselling author
Karen Emmerling of Beach Books with “The Horse” and the August Indie Next List featuring her review.
