Today's Read: Boleto by Alyson Hagy

What if you were the youngest of three sons looking for a way to escape your family's small ranch in central Wyoming? Although there's work for him at home, Will Testerman has a restless, independent spirit; besides, he's just about to fall in love with a two-year-old:

She was a gift, though he did not think of her that way for a long time. He paid twelve hundred dollars for her, money that came straight from his single account at Cabin Valley Bank. She was halter broke, and trailer broke, and she had been wormed for the spring. Someone had taken a rasp to her feet. He had seen her dam, Sally's Quick Ticket, win more than one prize in cutting horse competitions. He had no knowledge of her sire. The man who bred her kept good horses at his ranch outside of Cody, on the South Fork of the Shoshone River. The man did not use his horses much, but he had an experienced manager, someone who knew how to care for foals and weanlings. When the man chose to sell some of his animals, the manager, a careful fellow by the name of Campion, asked around. Campion did not go in for the commotion of stock sales. He had four horses he needed to sell, and the prettiest one was a quarter horse filly that was barley two years old. She was nicely balanced. There was a decent chance she had inherited her mother's speed.

—Boleto by Alyson Hagy (Graywolf Pess, 2012, p. 5 [opening paragraph])

Quick Facts

• Setting: rural western ranches; southern California polo clubs
• Circumstances: Will Testerman, an ex-rodeo competitor, is determined to make his name as a horse trainer; he's been told that trained polo horses can command a good price
• Characters: Will, twenty-three years old; Boleto, two years old; Will's family, friends, and enemies; other trainers and buyers
• Genre: contemporary western; character study; literary fiction
• Major themes: the new West; strong bond between cowboy and horse; social divides (wealth, class, region); changing way of life; hard dose of reality; non-romantic view of today's cowboy
• Writing style: beautiful, poetic, descriptive, unforgettable; many reviewers compare Hagy to Kent Haruf, Cormac McCarthy, and Annie Proulx
• Miscellaneous: Indie Next pick for May 2012; finalist for the Reading West Book Award; now out in paperback
• Novel's origins: story inspired by a chance meeting with a horse trainer

ISBN-13: 9781555976637
Copyright © cbl for Beth Fish Reads, all rights reserved (see review policy).