About the author
Barbara Dimmick was born and raised in Eastern Pennsylvania, and loved horses from the age of two when she rode a palomino pony at a birthday party. She was educated at the University of New Hampshire, and also went to Morven Park Equestrian Institute. From 2002–6 she taught creative writing at Dartmouth College. Her first book was In the Presence of Horses, published in 1998. The Library Journal called this “a pretty lame first novel”; Publisher’s Weekly was rather kinder, and found it “absorbing”.
Finding the book
Still in print.
Links and sources
Barbara Dimmick’s website (link no longer working)
Bibliography (horse books only)
In the Presence of Horses
Doubleday, New York, hb, 1998, 343 pp.
Flamingo, London, 1998, 343 pp.
Picador, 1999, pb
Natalie Baxter has spent her life fixated on horses, and at the age of 40 is still drifting round from stable to stable. She eventually finds herself being employed by Pierce Kreitzer. Both of them appear mired in self-pity; he even more than she. Natalie is drawn to a black horse, Twister, who belonged to Pierce’s dead sister, and establishes a mystical bond with the horse. Twister however has a degenerative disease, so another loss is inevitable for Natalie, who does however, manage to come to terms with her life.
