OUTCAST, STALLION OF HAWAII

Bart Holiday, a foundling left in a wicker basket on the doorstep of Doc Holiday, who ran an animal hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska, was sent by his foster father to ease the grief of Helen and Dick Hunter, whose son Des had been killed instantly while riding on their ranch in Hawaii, when his horse, Pirate, struck a lava tube and stumbled. Bart fills the void in the Hunter family and rehabilitates Pirate, the injured horse, who had been allowed to wander untended after the accident. Human relationships seem tenuous, but Bart is officially adopted by the Hunter family at the novel's end. Identities here have, to say the least, a disturbing impermanence.