Horse Heaven

by Jane Smiley

Hardcover, 2000

Call number

FIC SMI

Collection

Publication

Knopf (2000), Edition: 1st, 576 pages

Description

A novel set in the world of thoroughbred racing follows a group of trainers, jockeys, and "track brats" on a two-year journey through the racing cycle.

User reviews

LibraryThing member KAzevedo
The racing world is a complex microcosm of life. This book is a great view of that world with its huge variety of characters and the horses around which it revolves. It's hard to put down, and often there are profound passages about life that must be reread several times. It's real too, so if it
Show More
hurts too much to learn what life is for race horses, don't read it. But, there are many good people and heartworming events to balance the harsh reality. As a horse owner, it was a sometimes painful, sometimes funny, involving, altogether compelling read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rutibegga
couldn not get into this book. too many characters, no reason to care about any of them.
LibraryThing member marysargent
Wonderful, wonderful. I not only admired it for its plotting, characters and writing, I loved it. I had a crush on it. She conveyed lots of information about horse racing and everyone involved in it without showing off, without making you stop and think about how much she knows. Smiley gets better
Show More
with every book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member susanbevans
Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley is a novel about horses and their breeders, owners, trainers, grooms, jockeys, traders, bettors and other turf-obsessed humans. It takes place over two-years and chronicles the lives of various horses and their people.

I know a little about horses - that is to say I've
Show More
ridden horses, been to riding competitions, and been to the race track - but I still found this book particularly hard to get into. You see nothing ever happens, there is no real plot. The entire novel is much more a character epic, and the only redeemable characters are the horses. The horses are quirky and sensitive, and you become attached to them all and feel their ups and downs, their victories and defeats.

The book bounces from character to character, in a way that makes you assume that the stories will converge at some point, but they never really do. They are all loosely related by being in the racing world, but that's it. Every time I felt I had a handle on everyone in the book, Smiley added another set of characters - I couldn't keep up!

In conclusion, let me say this to you: if you enjoy plot-driven novels, this book it not for you; if you enjoy slow-moving character studies, you'll enjoy Horse Heaven. My advice is to read this book for the horses, because the humans will disappoint you every time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bjgoff689
To read again and again. Speaking as a rider and horse lover, but this is not just a book about horses. Human frailties, romance, career disruptions and disillusionment, friendship, tragedy, comedy, destiny, fate, you name it. Great book.
LibraryThing member jujumac
As a horse lover and racing enthusiast, I so wanted to like this book. Instead, it was a distasteful chore to get through. There was a wide panoply of disparate characters presented in what amounted to a long succession of character studies, only vaguely linked together. This in itself is certainly
Show More
not a bad structure, but the characters themselves were repugnant and uninteresting; there was no genuine insight into their condition, no discernible development of any kind, or anything valuable to be taken away from their stories. I found that I did not feel any kind of emotional attachment or sympathy for a single character, even though there were so very many. The anecdotes narrated by the horses and the dog came off as gimmicky when they could have been novel and interesting, and all the details about horse racing and horses was terribly pedantic when it could have been quite intriguing (think Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit"). The resolution, such as it was, was both improbable and unfulfilling. The whole book left me with an unpleasantly smug aftertaste and a general feeling of "So what?" The book didn't leave me with any valuable insight at all, about either the humans or the horses, and the writing style was overly slick, even glib, I felt. Overall I ended up with an indelible impression of a self-important writer showing off while skimping on substance.

I was not even surprised when I discovered later that Smiley, who claims to be a horse lover herself and attempted to portray horses as noble and intelligent creatures in this book, also wrote a long and chilling pro-slaughter article in the New York Times advocating electrocuting to death old and unsound horses as a "humane" method of euthanasia. I did not know at all of Smiley's personal views on horses at the time I originally read "Horse Heaven," but now it has definitely colored my opinion of her writings about horses. That aside, I couldn't even enjoy the way she wrote about humans, and so I highly doubt I will ever pick up another of her books.
Show Less
LibraryThing member missreeka
This is a big, sprawling book, so massive that it comes complete with a list of characters that is two pages long. And yes, the book jumps all over the place, from Belmont to Del Mar, even to Paris and then back, and just as you're settling in with one character (and it could be a four-legged one)
Show More
you're off to another. But Smiley can pull it off, and some of my favorite parts of the book were those told from the horses' point of view. And at the end of this 500+ page book, I found myself wishing that it wouldn't end just yet.
Show Less
LibraryThing member nancenwv
I loved this book! The combination of a rich knowledge of horses, horse people, and racing was impressive but what I really loved was Smiley's cast of characters (including the horses and the Jack Russell terrier). She kept surprising me with her insight, her creativity,and her humor. Terrific.
LibraryThing member jimmaclachlan
I'm not really sure how I feel about the book overall. It was excellent in many ways, but sort of pointless overall. It's a soap opera about horses & the people working with them on the track with a sort of beginning & a kind of end, but there was a lot of history & certainly life goes on after the
Show More
book ends.

The writing was good, engaging & yet there wasn't a single defined plot, so I got a bit lost at times. Toward the middle of the book, I almost gave it up due to characters musing & then it suddenly picked up again. I guess that was the biggest flaw, there was a very realistic unevenness to the story. Tons of crazy things happen, then life sort of drifts along & the cycle repeats.

There are a lot of characters, both horse & human, but there is a pretty good list in the front. It might be worthwhile to make some extra notes. Some of the characters were tough for me to keep separated. For instance, two trainers, Farley & Dick were similar enough that I confused them on more than one occasion, although that didn't really hurt the story at all. Most stood out wonderfully like Justa Bob & Mr. T, super horse characters.

I have enough experience to know that Smiley REALLY knows the business & her take on it, the way she describes the horses & the people, is fantastic. If you like watching any of the big flat races (e.g. the Kentucky Derby) & wonder what sort of life led up to & goes on after, I can't think of a better way to do it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Amzzz
There was nothing wrong with this book as such and I'm sure Jane Smiley is an excellent writer, but I just have no interest in horses! My own fault for choosing it!
LibraryThing member jjaylynny
What a charming book. Lost at first with too many characters and story lines, but one of those books where you think you're grumpy that you're being taken away from a story you like, only to find that you love the new chapter just as much. Once I took the author's advice to "follow the horses", I
Show More
had a much easier time following the action (though I also wrote stuff down).

Who'da thunk that one of my favorite literary characters this year will be a horse. I heart you, Justa Bob.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LyndaInOregon
A little over halfway through this novel, Smiley writes: " "...in 1996, 32,217 (Thoroughbred) foals were born. Of these, 11,056 got to the races as two-year-olds."

It feels at times in this 561-page whopper, that she is trying to tell the story of each one of them, plus the stories of their assorted
Show More
breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys, grooms, exercise riders, and veterinarians. Smiley is a skillful writer, but even if you are fascinated by horses and horse racing, you may find this a monumental read. (Please note that I will assiduously avoid horse-racing metaphors throughout this review, even though it's greatly tempting!) There are huge sections of internal dialogue in which the human characters bemoan their inability to accept the things they love, abandon the things that are destructive to their happiness, and generally dither around until Faithful Reader wants to smack them upside the head and/or tell them to get the hell out of the narrative so the story can progress.

The story, stripped of all the navel-gazing, is that of six of those eleven-thousand-odd Thoroughbred foals that got to the track, and of the humans whose hopes and aspirations and (sometimes) financial survival are pinned to them. Some sections of the novel are actually told from the horses' viewpoints (and from the viewpoint of the most obnoxious dog in literary history) -- a neat trick that Smiley pulls off flawlessly. The animal characters, because they are a lot less whiny and a lot more certain of what they want, are much more interesting than the human ones.

There's a compelling and sometimes even heart-touching story hiding under all this verbiage, and I would have given it four stars instead of three except for one disturbing sub-plot. In it, without any foreshadowing or groundwork, one character suddenly withdraws from what had been a successful personal and professional relationship and sinks into a depression so deep and crippling that suicide would have been a definite possibility -- only to emerge whole and cured after a single telephone conversation with someone who says the decision to remain depressed or not is "up to you".

As the survivor of depressive episodes, I can tell you -- It. Doesn't. Work. Like. That. All the pep talks in the world, whether they come from the inside or the outside, cannot cure the chemical imbalance that leads to systemic depression. Telling someone to "get over it" is like telling a diabetic to "get over" their disease. That one section really colored the book for me. Biased? Probably. And your mileage may vary.

I did appreciate the fact that this novel is ***about*** horse racing (and its people and animals). It's not just a referenced background for characters who have lots of (or very little) money and occasionally flounce off to the racetrack to see "their" horse win a race that makes everything Happy Ever After.
Show Less
LibraryThing member gbelik
This book has multiple stories, many connected with each other, set in the world of thoroughbred racing. Sometimes I had trouble remembering who was who, but still, I think it is one of my favorite of Jane Smiley's novels.
LibraryThing member Equestrienne
This one is an all time favorite. I really like Smiley's writing style and this is a subject so close to my heart. Having worked in the racing industry for over ten years I thoroughly enjoyed her familiarity with racing, the people and the horses.

What a great cast of characters, both human, equine
Show More
and canine. There are several female characters I could just morph into; Rosalind Maybrick, Joy, Tiffany, Marvelous Martha, Deirdre, Krista, Audrey. I adore Sir Michael; what an agent! I love Justa Bob and Mr T; two racetrack survivors who remind me of my own racing retiree, a gelding I owned from 1989 until he passed peacefully in 2015. Residual reminds me of so many fillies I have taken care of and bonded with and thought about over the years after they walked out of my life forever. I always felt bad for the grey orphan filly......she was sending them a very clear message that she did not want to be a racehorse. Because she was bred for it, she was put into training and entered in races, and, because she was a Thoroughbred, she did what was asked of her, she raced and finally got a win before they wisely retired her. She had a sweet deal in the end, though, filling a role for which she had an aptitude. Both Epic Steam and Limitless represent the classic racetrack enigma; talented, fast, athletic horses who aren't performing up to their potential and need a trainer who can figure them out......Epic Steam never found that trainer, but Limitless did. Eileen, the Jack Russell Terrier, is a quintessential representation of what I think all Jack Russells are in thought and action.

This novel chronicles all aspects of horse racing, the tragedies, the triumphs, and even the mundane daily activities such as raking the shedrow in the late morning after early chores and workouts are over and almost every horse in the barn is napping. Jane Smiley shows us the difference between a successful but crooked and corrupt trainer (Buddy Crawford), and a brilliant, thoughtful trainer who really pays attention to each horse (Farley Jones).

I find myself re-reading this book every year as the Breeder's Cup approaches.....this is one story I will never get tired of.

Of course, this book is not for people who have difficulty keeping track of more than one character and one theme, only those capable of complex thought should crack this book open.
Show Less

Awards

Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2001)

Pages

576

ISBN

037540600X / 9780375406003
Page: 1.0427 seconds