Jane Smiley

Jane Badger Books

Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley (1949- ) was born in Los Angeles, California, and was educated at Vassar College and the University of Iowa. She taught at the University of Iowa until 1996. Her first novel, Barn Blind, appeared in 1980, and she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for A Thousand Acres. In 2001 she was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2006 was awarded the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature.

Jane Smiley is a great writer who writes the occasional great horse book. Horse Heaven, has had a generally rapturous reception, and she has now written two children’s horse books. The first of these, The Georges and the Jewels, is the stronger. It’s a slow paced study of a girl finding her way through a complicated world. The sequel, A Good Horse, is not as strong, lacking the emotional complexity of the the first book. A third part of the series is planned.

Finding the books: all are in print and easy to find.

Links and sources:
Jane Smiley’s website
Jane Smiley as a blogger on the Huffington Post

Bibliography - horse books only

The Georges and the Jewels

Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2009, illus Elaine Clayton, 232 pp.

UK: Nobody’s Horse

Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 2010, 266 pp.

Read a review here

Abby is the daughter of a horse dealer father, and she has problems: problems at school and problems at home.
Abby’s job is to get the horses ready for sale, but her father buys one which terrifies her.

Horse Heaven

Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2000, 561 pp. Jacket painting: Hanover, C L Zellinsky

Faber & Faber, London, 2001, 699 pp.

A story of racing and its intertwined world: Epic Steam; Residual; Limitless; Froney's Sis and
Justa Bob, a set of radically different horses.

A Good Horse

Alfred A Knopt, New York, 2010, illus Elaine Clayton, 246 pp.

UK: Secret Horse

Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 2011, 299 pp.

Read a review here

Abby’s colt Jack is growing up, and Abby’s doing well with Black George. Life seems much more settled, but then
a letter arrives. Jack’s mother, whom Abby’s father bought from a sale, might be a stolen mare who was in foal to a
very expensive stallion indeed.

Children’s books

Barn Blind

Harper & Row, New York, 1980, 218 pp.

Flamingo, London, 1994, 218 pp.

In rural Illinois, Kate Karlsen has 50 horses and four children. She has no help to look after the
horses apart from the children, who are part of her disciplined and rather unfeeling world until,
with spectacular and tragic results, they rebel.

A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2004, 297 pp.

Faber and Faber, London, 2004, 287 pp.

Non fiction, this is Jane Smiley’s account of her love affair with the Horse.

Non fiction