2024-01-04
In Donley-Hayes’ novel, an equestrian wakes from an accident to find herself radically changed.
An unnamed young woman urges her horse at a tremendous pace along a difficult obstacle course, hoping that a strong finish will put her on track to qualify for the Olympics. At one jump, the horse falls, throwing the rider and then rolling over her, a potentially fatal tragedy for both. But the woman regains her senses in a bizarre new reality: She finds herself in the body of a newborn foal named Diamond Shoals (“Shoalie” for short). This “chimera filly” is newly born to a big placid mare on a lush Kentucky breeding farm. At first she’s frustrated that none of the humans around her (including the kindly veterinarian, Sam, and her new owner, Oksana) seem to understand her protestations that she is, in fact, a human reincarnated in the form of a horse. The only person in her new world who can understand her is Nik, a gruff crow with whom she forms a friendship as she relaxes into her new reality as a horse, relishing fast running: “She ran to kiss her speed and power, to feel her lovely long legs sweep through the air and propel her.” As Oksana and her trainer, Mike (a brooding figure who both fascinates her and unsettles her), notice Shoalie’s talent for speed, they begin training her for serious competition. The author conjures this odd fable with a graceful, sinuous prose: “She gained momentum,” reads one of many passages describing the power and beauty of horses, “the rail to their left blurred, the white posts flitting past faster and faster, and the backstretch opened before her, a siren beckoning.” Readers will guess the central plot gimmick fairly early, but they’ll likely be too swept along to care, since Donley-Hayes fills Shoalie’s story with surprisingly effective pathos.
A moving and eloquent fable about a woman experiencing life as a horse.
