I love love love this book. Absolute winner. There were so many crazy, quirky animal and human characters in this novel but my favorite characters were a horse named Justa Bob who always won races by a nose and has a habit of pooping in his water bucket; and Elaine, a highly-opinionated Jack Russell terrier. The human characters were equally enjoyable and hilarious. This book is about thoroughbred horse racing, but even if you don’t know anything about horses or racing, Jane Smiley’s thoughtful and flowing writing style will help you figure it out for yourself. Its a little challenging to keep track of all of the people in this book and who owns what horse, but Smiley gives all characters equal amount of time and attention and the all the story lines flow into one another.
I always feel kind of sad when I finish a book that I really enjoyed. I have to take a few days off from reading to clear my head, because all the characters become so real to me. Plus its hard to figure out what to read next. I picked up The Devil’s Highway at that bookstore in Hastings, so that’s probably next, but I know it will be an emotionally intense read and I’m not quite ready for that yet.
