HORSE CRAZY

A New York Times staff reporter profiles horses and horse lovers across the country while delving into her own lifelong passion.

Born into an upper-middle-class Jewish family, Nir began riding horses when she was 2. Equines became her source of comfort as she grew up “outsourced to…nannies” and feeling like an outsider in the world of wealth she inhabited. In her debut book, Nir weaves “the lifelong dialogues I’ve had with these animals” into a narrative about her life as a horse lover. She begins with the dawn horse, the predecessor of the modern equine. The author returned to a place she would often go as a child—the American Museum of Natural History—to see the remains of this proto-horse. Her journey then took her to Kentucky, where she visited a yearly gathering of the Breyer model horse collectors. As a girl, she writes, “the perfect plastic replicas called Breyer model horses were my solace and fixation.” Nir’s study of horse icons in the American imagination led her to travel to the two Virginia coast islands, Chincoteague and Assateague, that served as the setting for Marguerite Henry’s beloved book Misty of Chincoteague. Throughout the book, Nir remembers horses she owned—e.g., Amigo and Willow—and how they eased the pain of a lonely childhood. Conversations with a veteran California horse “listener” helped her better understand how equines communicate, and she explores the history of black cowboys via her visit to an African American–owned riding academy for disadvantaged New York City children. Later in the text, a ride-along on a high-society fox hunt brought Nir into unexpected—and personally affirming—contact with the master of the hunt, who reveals his personal hero was a Holocaust survivor—Nir's own father. This thoughtful, well-researched book offers a charming portrait of horses in America as well as of a woman who found self-acceptance in their graceful company.

A bighearted debut book sure to please horse lovers.