Barn Blind: A Novel [Paperback]

Jane Smiley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 1993

The verdant pastures of a farm in Illinois have the placid charm of a landscape painting. But the horses that graze there have become the obsession of a woman who sees them as the fulfillment of every wish: to win, to be honored, to be the best. Her ambition is the galvanizing force in Jane Smiley's first novel, a force that will drive a wedge between her and her family, and bring them all to tragedy.
Written with the grace and quiet beauty of her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, A Thousand Acres, Barn Blind is a spellbinding story on the classic American themes of work, love, and duty, and the excesses we commit to achieve success.
"Chilling . . . Jane Smiley handles with skill and understanding the mercurial molasses of adolescence, and the inchoate, cumbersome love that family members feel for one another."
-- The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Smiley's achievement is to communiate so successfully the failure of communication. She has anatomised a network of relationships, focusing with almost impossible subtlety on the gaps between people.' Lesley Glaister, The Times 'Entirely gripping... This book is so alive in its detail that you can practically smell the tack and the straw and hear the animals shifting in their stalls. Jane Smiley's unobtrusive prose is very good at evoking the bleakness of the heart, but it can also illuminate moments almost beyond articulacy.' Anita Mason, Independent on Sunday --This text refers to the Print on Demand (Paperback) edition.

From the Inside Flap

The verdant pastures of a farm in Illinois have the placid charm of a landscape painting. But the horses that graze there have become the obsession of a woman who sees them as the fulfillment of every wish: to win, to be honored, to be the best. Her ambition is the galvanizing force in Jane Smiley's first novel, a force that will drive a wedge between her and her family, and bring them all to tragedy.
Written with the grace and quiet beauty of her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, A Thousand Acres, Barn Blind is a spellbinding story on the classic American themes of work, love, and duty, and the excesses we commit to achieve success.
"Chilling . . . Jane Smiley handles with skill and understanding the mercurial molasses of adolescence, and the inchoate, cumbersome love that family members feel for one another."
-- The New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 9, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449908747
• ISBN-13: 978-0449908747
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,472,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More than a horse story, March 21, 2000

By 

Janice M. Hansen (California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Barn Blind: A Novel (Paperback)

This book literally haunted me. I found myself constantly thinking about the characters days after I finished it. It is a quiet kind of story, packed with repressed emotions, and somehow the ending felt cathartic although not immediately so. I could see chaos in this large rambling horse farm family and I could put together the events with a clarity I did not feel the moment I finished the book. It took awhile, and slowly these people took more shape and I began to understand more and feel the story's latent ending. I was intrigued by the family dynamics, the dominant mother/trainer, the passive, ever-loving, forgiving father, and each child responding in the only way their personalities would allow to the intensity of their demanding mother. The end was powerful. I reflected on the father holding his head in his hands as he realized there was no end in sight to his wife's sovereignity and determination to carry on at any cost. I crave a sequel, yet I already know it. It is the epitome of barn blind.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Written, October 11, 2008

By 

Greenstone - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barn Blind (Paperback)

Good story, excellent writing! Jane Smiley descriptions were wonderful and I enjoyed learning about the care and training of horses. Interesting and captivating novel.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, April 19, 2005

By 

Karen Hornyak "avid eclectic" (Akron, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barn Blind: A Novel (Paperback)

I expected to love this book, but I was disappointed. Although the setting is a horse farm, the horses are basically props moved about in the process of exploring family dynamics. The primary theme is one many people can relate to: a parent trying to live vicariously through her children, without regard to their own desires. However, I was unable to fully "connect" with any of the characters emotionally; perhaps because author Smiley relates their story in a rather detached manner herself. Even so, I might have liked this book more if the ending had not been so abrupt. Just as I was starting to really care about the characters, the climactic event occurs--and the ending comes so soon afterward that the story seems unfinished. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistically high due to having read "Horse Heaven", a more recent work, first. Everything I expected from "Barn Blind" is delivered masterfully in "Horse Heaven". For all but the most avid Jane Smiley fans, I would recommend either reading "Barn Blind" first, or skipping it altogether and reading "Horse Heaven" instead.