Horse Heaven: A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • An “irresistible [and] beautifully braided tale” (The Wall Street Journal) that spans two years in the lives of thoroughbred breeders and trainers—and of the horses themselves—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Thousand Acres

“[A] wise, spirited novel . . . Smiley plumbs the wondrously strange world of horse racing.”—People

“[Smiley is] one of the premier novelists of her generation, possessed of a mystery of craft and an uncompromising vision.”—The Washington Post

“It’s not true,” says a character in Jane Smiley’s funny, passionate, and brilliant novel of horse racing, “that anything can happen at the racetrack,” but many astonishing and affecting things do—and in Horse Heaven, we find them woven into a marvelous tapestry of joy and love, trickery, folly, greed, and heroism.

Millionaire owners risk more than money. Canny horsemen (and women) learn more than they bargained for. Young girls experience their first innocent love for the beautiful animals. And the horses—nervous or cocky, lucky or doomed—take the hapless, hopeful humans on one very wild ride.

Hailed by Salon as “a remarkable achievement,” Horse Heaven is a sprawling masterpiece that revels in the desire and chance that is horse racing.

A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE