A realistic, compassionate look at a family in crisis struggling toward individual growth and purpose.
A horse could be the salvation of a desperate man and his troubled son in this novel.
Body shop employee Dean Hostler’s impulse to buy a filly at a horse auction as a birthday gift for his 16-year-old son, Ricky, is one screw-up too many. His naïve winning bid of “16” means that he is contracted to pay $16,000 for the horse, not $1,600. His family’s trailer home is seized in lieu of payment, and his adored wife, Lorraine, leaves him. She loves the dreamer in Dean but not his disconnect from the reality of their lives—money worries and Ricky’s attention deficit disorder. That the horse, named Orphan, will be the catalyst to change the lives of Dean and Ricky is evident from the get-go. Dean is drawn to her as “something ancient and incorruptible,” and she becomes Ricky’s world. But this tale, set in the 1980s, is written with too much gritty compassion for its flawed characters to turn into a trite, upbeat horse story. Keegan, whose books include the YA novel Clearwater Summer (1994) and the adult novel A Good Divorce (2003), brings nuance to the emotionally charged challenges his players face as they strive to find themselves. Alternating third-person narratives reveal Dean’s and Lorraine’s perspectives of each other, Ricky, the painful family histories that shaped them, their differing hopes for the future, and her potentially devastating secret. These relatable narratives are effectively interspersed with Ricky’s troubled, first-person observations of his parents, the new people in their lives (including horsewoman Jill Sprague, who has her own demons but gives Dean and Orphan a safe harbor), and the teen’s condition. Ricky’s disorder worsens when his mother is courted by a manipulative man, Dean’s one-time best friend from high school. Movingly, Ricky’s condition is integral to the profound, healing bond that he forms with Orphan. Throughout, the vivid milieu of horses, riders, and the “backside” of racing, where Dean feels at home with an eclectic mix of “people like himself who didn’t fit in anywhere else,” is informed by the depth of Keegan’s firsthand experience.
A realistic, compassionate look at a family in crisis struggling toward individual growth and purpose.Pub Date: June 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63-901466-8
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Global Summit House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
