A Fine Place to Daydream: Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish (Hardcover)

by Bill Barich (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Barich, a former New Yorker writer, moves to Dublin after falling in love with an Irish woman, but shortly after his arrival he develops an (arguably) even stronger passion for gambling on Irish horse races. This obsession is an extension of his longstanding infatuation with the racetrack (which was the basis for his 1980 classic, Laughing at the Hills). But the steeplechase popular throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom is an entirely different type of race, where a horse's jumping skills matter as much as speed. Barich follows a steeplechase season from October to March, culminating in a weeklong series of races at Cheltenham, England, and consults as many horse trainers, jockeys, bookies and fellow fans as he can find to get the inside dope on how he should place his bets. His narrative is simple but elegant, and his language is erudite without being pretentious. (When he slips in an allusion to Ulysses, for example, it's so casual that it won't stop readers who don't catch it.) The book's setting may be exotic to American readers, but the sheer joy of being a sports fan will be familiar to many. (Mar.)
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From The Washington Post
Bill Barich has been writing what amounts to an ongoing memoir, with fishing and horse racing its central themes, for more than a quarter century. Nice work if you can get it. Barich's most eloquent installment was Laughing in the Hills, about a season spent poking around a down-at-the-heels California racetrack. That book was published in 1980, and it was so vivid, so thorough, so resolutely affectionate -- and so long ago -- that Barich fans couldn't be blamed if they figured he'd squeezed all the juice he could out of something he loved so well.

The latest episode in the Barich saga finds the author confessing that, in fact, he's grown bored of horse racing, at least the "flat course" kind. He's discovered something better: Irish jump races, or steeplechases. He explains that the flat races, being devoted to speed, are over quickly, but the jump races, where horses hurdle fences, "were rich in subplots and dramatic reversals of fate . . . plus they had a pastoral aspect that was transcendent, and entirely beautiful." In other words, the lucky sonofagun has wangled his best gig yet with A Fine Place to Daydream, in which he fixes a loving but unsentimental eye on a kind of mystical trifecta: ponies, "punters" (Irish slang for gamblers) and the Old Sod.

That's where Barich found himself after a divorce. He planned to buy a fishing cabin in the Sierra Nevada, he writes, where he could "rusticate from middle into old age." But fate intervened in the form of an Irishwoman named Imelda Healy. With a boldness he describes as uncharacteristic, Barich followed her home to Dublin to woo her. "The move required a leap of faith, but no doubt love in any form, at any time or any age, demands such a gamble," he writes, "and at odd moments [I felt] a warm kinship with the horses who, when they take flight and leave the earth, hang for a half-second in a cloud of uncertainty before they know what the future will bring."

Barich won Healy's love, and a pleasant honeyed glow settles over his reporting of the 2003-04 Irish jump-racing season. It's not only dear Imelda who provided our hero with a fresh perspective; Ireland, too, worked its magic. "Nowhere did I witness the air of drudgery that hovers over most American tracks, where the regular customers could be punching a clock at a factory they hated. Gambling makes the wheels go round in the land of the free, and though the Irish like a flutter, too, the horse is still at the center of things."

A Fine Place to Daydream doesn't benefit from a quick break out of the gate, but once Barich gets past a short first chapter that is, oddly, his narrative's only self-conscious stretch, he chats illuminatingly with jockeys, trainers, breeders, bookies, bettors and -- when he's debating which horse to make a "flutter" on -- himself. Like a horse that senses the ability of its rider and responds accordingly, readers know when they are immersed in the work of a master. Barich makes a winning companion -- he's warm, funny and relaxed (in his storytelling, if not his wagering).

Barich's betting is chaotic, bedeviling and entertaining as all get out. He'll settle on a horse, and then, as if disembodied, hear himself bet on another. He'll vow to limit himself to three races, but then, "infatuated with [his] own intelligence, and convinced [he] was in harmony with the universal flow," he'll bet a fourth, dropping $50 to win on a dubious underdog. He'll parse the arcana of the Racing Post as if it were the Talmud, then change his mind based on a horse's looks. As he puts it, "Sometimes after a bet I want to go back a minute later and beg the bookie for a refund, as people do when they send a nasty or unguarded e-mail, but at others I'm enveloped in a profound aura of well-being and entirely regret-free, as if the result of the race were preordained." Searching for a touchstone, Barich alights on the counsel of the eminent Irish gambler John P. McManus: "The going" -- the condition of the track -- "is the most important thing. Set out to make a point or two over the odds and go in with two fists. And above all, beware of certainties." Barich vows to live by McManus' s credo, but alas.

You might think that a predilection for the ponies is a prerequisite for getting a kick out of A Fine Place to Daydream. You would be wrong. With apologies to the great McManus, the writing is the most important thing. Barich has the gift. Go in with two fists.

Reviewed by Bob Ivry
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (March 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400042798
• ISBN-13: 978-1400042791
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #827,416 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Barich's Gold Cup Bid, March 31, 2006

By	Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

When I moved to San Francisco, my father told me to make sure to look up the author Bill Barich, who lived nearby here and whose early books my father admired. One was called LAUGHING IN THE HILLS. I would see Barich at different literary events and went to several readings by him. He was always a laughing, jolly sort of person. But lately I haven't seem him around town, and I had just about forgotten his existence, when a friend popped his new book to me in the mail, knowing of my love of horses and Irish ancestry. As it turns out, Barich fell in love with a woman from Ireland, and moved there to be with her. I didn't even know, but why would I?

His new book picks up with his life in Dublin, a peripatetic life because even though he is besotted with Imelda, he ignores her often to go hunting down horseflesh. The trotters of US race courses are very unlike the jumpers prized in Ireland, and for Barich it's a whole new ballgame. He is older now, on the brink between middle age and being a senior citizen, so some of his moves have a frantic, late Yeats quality to them. As though he knows this will be his last hurrah.

The writing isn't as daisy fresh as in the early books my late father so loved, but as always, he knows how to inject fun into his travel narrative. On St Patrick's Day he gets caught in a saturnalia of drunk racegoers, including a "pair of short chubby guys in leprechaun costumes who were hamming it up for the crowd, their faces painted green and their bloodshot eyes brimful of booze. I was in the midst of a Lorca rhapsody, caught in a swirl of green shirts and ties, green scarves and socks, green dresses and beer, and probably green underwear." Barich is literate beyond the realms of most sports writers, few of whom would have tried even to make the allusion to Lorca's "Romance Sonambulo," the poem that begins, "Green, how I want you green" "Verde que te quiero verde./ Verde viento. Verdes ramas." But Barich makes it almost work.

His story of following the Gold Cup from beginning to end will enthrall even stay at homes. Wonder when we'll next see his smiling face at the San Francisco Public Library, where he would sometimes grace the floor.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A master stylist writes of horses and romance and Ireland., March 27, 2006

By	Richard L. Pangburn (Bardstown, KY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've long touted Bill Barich's LAUGHING IN THE HILLS, named by Amazon as one of the best sports books of the last century, and now after many years here finally is a satisfactory sequel. Barich follows his soulmate back to Ireland, where he also falls in love with the pastoral steeplechase and horses over hurdles on the green:

"I took to it so readily that the flat races began to bore me. Devoted to speed, they were over in a flash, while a good chase unfolded as leisurely as a Hardy novel. The jump races were rich in subplots and dramatic reversals of fate, too, plus they have a pastoral aspect that was transcendent, and entirely beautiful."

Literate, lyrical, and a tonic for the mind. Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Living MY Daydream!, July 18, 2006

By	L. Alper (Englewood CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I picked this book up entirely by accident at the public library. Never having heard of Bill Barich, I had no idea what a fine writer he was but the subject matter is one I had long fantasized about: going to Ireland to follow the races.

For an American who's only knowledge of horse-racing is watching the Triple Crown on TV, racing in Europe (especially the UK & Ireland) is an entirely different (& much kinder) sport. The races are run on natural terrain & not necessarily on an oval track. There is no 2 year old racing (a 2 year old Thoroughbred is the equivalent of a 12 year old human). The fact that horses generally don't start racing until they're fully mature at 4, and the natural turf of the courses is reflected in the much longer careers of European horses; 8 & 9 year old champions are common. Races are run both on flat & over fences, and are a much better length than US racing, where 1 1/2 miles is a rarity. In Europe, 3 miles is pretty standard, & 4 miles is not unheard of. Taken all together, European racing is not only better for the horse, but more interesting and varied for the spectator ('punters' in turf lingo).

So Bill Barich, recently transplanted to Dublin finds himself in a world very different than US racing. It's a world where there are betting shops on every corner, and one of the biggest bookmakers runs ads on TV (odds on an old lady crossing a busy street? 7-1!). It's a world in which he can visit the training facilities of top trainers to have a jaw with them about their training methods, & have a chat with the top jockeys over a cup of tea in the family house. It's a world where a local track has a 4 day meeting & the school in town let's its' students out to attend. One of the top commentators on Irish TV is 'the racing priest' a parish priest who gives tips on the races. It's a world I have often daydreamed about joining.

Barich charts his course over a racing season, ending in Cheltenham which is a 4 day meet in the Cotswalds, & is the European version of the Triple Crown. Over the season he has a few particular horses he follows closely, as well as sometimes giving in to impulse & placing losing bets. Written beautifully, A Fine Place to Daydream may start you daydreaming as well.