I suppose my headline is a paradox, but it's only fair to explain the range of this wonderful new novel. Martha Lesson’s son, Bud, tells the story of his year in Hollywood cowboy movies in the 30s. We learn a lot about Bud Fraser while he’s learning a lot about the world and himself while falling from horses on movie sets. Bud’s narration alternates with chapters about his family, providing a necessary bridge from Gloss’s earlier novel to this story.
In some ways Falling from Horses is a direct sequel to The Hearts of Horses, since it centers on the next generation of the Fraser family. But in many ways it is another sort of book altogether. I think I wrote on Facebook that I “loved” this book right off, which isn’t true. I liked it right away, but it was someplace after page 40 or so that I was completely in love. I cried on page 102 and at the ends of many chapters after that. It’s not a sad book, though it has sadness. And it’s not a book about cruelty or loss, though these are significant aspects of the novel. What It has left me with, and what remains in my mind after reading it, is an appreciation for the shape of entire lives. A satisfying book will choose the places to leave the reader in comfort—not a storybook “happy ending” but with a sense of purpose or insight or strength. Maybe because I am getting old myself, I appreciate thinking about the shape of a person’s lifetime. Gloss respects both the unavoidable sorrow none of us can escape in life and the ability of people to make something of themselves as a result of their experiences and the people they meet along the way.
A young man leaves home after the loss of his sister, seeking, like his mother before him, to find heroism and adventure. What he finds is a life quite different than he imagined and people who challenge and inspire him. It is a story of ordinary heroism, the kind that matters in our lives, the sort of people who save us, especially from ourselves.
The stunt riders and wranglers, and Lily, the screenwriter who most affects Bud, each emerge as fully rounded people. (I could read an entire novel about Lily, though most of her life is right here, told by Bud, who loved her like family, because that's what she was in his life.) There is tenderness and generosity. There is what feels like truth.
This was a book I talked to while I read it, and these are people I feel I know like family. I should quote a line here, but people familiar with the writing of this author know the beauty and depth of her prose like cold, clear water. Readers who don’t know the work of Molly Gloss will probably surprise themselves by crying somewhere along the way.
I read passages, which became entire chapters, aloud to my husband. Eventually I will read him the entire thing, as we did with Hearts of Horses. I think this might be my favorite by Gloss, and Gloss is among my favorite authors. She respects people and how people interact and love and care for one another. There is a paradox here: There is tragedy and cruelty in the novel, but the story itself is neither of those things, but another reality entirely, a world where I want to dwell. I feel like I understand people better after I have read one of Gloss's books. I feel like a better person. I see the world as a bigger and more meaningful place.
NOTE I pre-ordered a copy of the novel in April, but I also won an Advance Reader copy on Goodreads. The novel was released in hardcover, 28 October 2014
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Martha Crawford
Extraordinary Research for a great book.
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