Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love With an Animal
Author: Sarah Maslin Nir
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Cover Description
In the bestselling tradition of works by such authors as Susan Orlean and Mary Roach, a New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist explores why so many people—including herself—are obsessed with horses.
It may surprise you to learn that there are over seven million horses in America — even more than when they were the only means of transportation — and nearly two million horse owners. Acclaimed journalist and avid equestrian Sarah Maslin Nir is one of them; she began riding horses when she was just two years old and hasn’t stopped since. Horse Crazy is a fascinating, funny, and moving love letter to these graceful animals and the people who — like her — are obsessed with them. It is also a coming-of-age story of Nir growing up an outsider within the world’s most elite inner circles, and finding her true north in horses.
Nir takes us into the lesser-known corners of the riding world and profiles some of its most captivating figures. We meet Monty Roberts, the California trainer whose prowess earned him the nickname “the man who listens to horses”; George and Ann Blair, the African-American husband and wife who run a riding academy for inner-city youth on a tiny island in the middle of Manhattan’s East River; and Francesca Kelly, a wealthy London socialite whose love for an Indian nobleman shaped her life’s mission: to rescue an endangered Indian breed of horse and bring them — illegally — to America.
Woven into these compelling character studies, Nir shares her own moving personal narrative. She details her father’s harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust, and describes an enchanted but deeply lonely upbringing in Manhattan, where horses became her family. She found them even in the middle of the city, in a stable disguised in an old townhouse and in Central Park, when she chased down truants as an auxiliary mounted patrol officer. And she speaks candidly of how horses have helped her overcome heartbreak and loss.
Infused with heart and wit, and with each chapter named after a horse Nir has loved, Horse Crazy is an unforgettable blend of beautifully written memoir and first-rate reporting.
TL;DR Review
Horse Crazy is part memoir, part journalistic inquiry into the far corners of the world. Even though I don’t have a special interest in horses, I really sunk into and enjoyed it.
For you if: You are curious about the world, and especially (but not necessarily) if love in animals or horses.
Full Review
Big thanks to Simon & Schuster for sending me a review copy of this book. I’m so glad you did!
Horse Crazy isn’t my first foray into this sort of part-memoir literary journalism genre (my first was The In-Betweens by Mira Ptacin), and I’m really starting to fall for it. I love the process of seeing into someone else’s life and interests, and learning more about a pocket of the world I’ve never explored before.
That’s exactly what this book did. I have probably only ever been on a horse when I was a small child at a county fair, and I don’t have any special interest in horses or animals in general. But I just sunk into this book. Reading it was warm and comfortable and truly enjoyable. It was also a nice break in between the kind of emotionally ravishing reads I usually gravitate to. That’s not to say that it doesn’t cover some heavy topics (it does), but Sarah Maslin Nir’s writing is just so engaging, and her instinct about which information and anecdotes will be most interesting is spot-on.
As the title suggests, this book is about the world of horses and Nir’s love for them. She switches between memoir — growing up in NYC with a father who was famous for surviving the Holocaust, finding horse-riding at the age of two and never looking back, seeking them out everywhere she went, starting a career in journalism with the New York Times — and deep dives into small pockets of the equine community. For example, she researched and interviewed people about the wild swimming horses of Assateague Island, the Black cowboys that American history has tried to erase, a woman who pushed and smuggled a rare breed of Indian horses into the US (love affair included in the story), and more.
I also really appreciated Nir’s candor with regard to her lifelong grapple with generational trauma, wealth, and guilt; class and privilege; love, family, and belonging, and more. She’s open, frank, emotionally intelligent, and self-aware. Although my own circumstances are very different from hers, I nevertheless recognized parts of myself in her experiences.
Do we not read to widen our own understanding and experience of the world? Of course we do. This book was a beautiful opportunity to do exactly that.