Painted Horses: A Novel
Aug 2014 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
star
3 reviews
Ebook
386
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
The national bestseller that "reads like a cross between Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms" ( The Dallas Morning News).
In this ambitious, incandescent debut, Malcolm Brooks animates the untamed landscape of the West in the 1950s.
Catherine Lemay is a young archaeologist on her way to Montana, with a huge task before her. Working ahead of a major dam project, she has one summer to prove nothing of historical value will be lost in the flood. From the moment she arrives, nothing is familiar—the vastness of the canyon itself mocks the contained, artifact-rich digs in post-Blitz London where she cut her teeth. And then there's John H, a former mustanger and veteran of the U.S. Army's last mounted cavalry campaign, living a fugitive life in the canyon. John H inspires Catherine to see beauty in the stark landscape, and her heart opens to more than just the vanished past. Painted Horses sends a dauntless young woman on a heroic quest, sings a love song to the horseman's vanishing way of life, and reminds us that love and ambition, tradition and the future, often make strange bedfellows.
"Engrossing . . . The best novels are not just written but built—scene by scene, character by character—until a world emerges for readers to fall into. Painted Horses creates several worlds." — USA Today (4 out of 4 stars)
"Extraordinary . . . both intimate and sweeping in a way that may remind readers of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient . . . Painted Horses is, after all, one of those big, old-fashioned novels where the mundane and the unlikely coexist." — The Boston Globe
In this ambitious, incandescent debut, Malcolm Brooks animates the untamed landscape of the West in the 1950s.
Catherine Lemay is a young archaeologist on her way to Montana, with a huge task before her. Working ahead of a major dam project, she has one summer to prove nothing of historical value will be lost in the flood. From the moment she arrives, nothing is familiar—the vastness of the canyon itself mocks the contained, artifact-rich digs in post-Blitz London where she cut her teeth. And then there's John H, a former mustanger and veteran of the U.S. Army's last mounted cavalry campaign, living a fugitive life in the canyon. John H inspires Catherine to see beauty in the stark landscape, and her heart opens to more than just the vanished past. Painted Horses sends a dauntless young woman on a heroic quest, sings a love song to the horseman's vanishing way of life, and reminds us that love and ambition, tradition and the future, often make strange bedfellows.
"Engrossing . . . The best novels are not just written but built—scene by scene, character by character—until a world emerges for readers to fall into. Painted Horses creates several worlds." — USA Today (4 out of 4 stars)
"Extraordinary . . . both intimate and sweeping in a way that may remind readers of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient . . . Painted Horses is, after all, one of those big, old-fashioned novels where the mundane and the unlikely coexist." — The Boston Globe
The national bestseller that "reads like a cross between Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms" ( The Dallas Morning News).
In this ambitious, incandescent debut, Malcolm Brooks animates the untamed landscape of the West in the 1950s.
Catherine Lemay is a y...
Discover more
Ratings and reviews
3 reviews
Cliff Hickey
- Flag inappropriate
February 21, 2023
Truly awesome. Thank you, Malcolm. I write as an 80 year old who grew up in the American west, worked on ranches in the 1950s of the book (while a young teenager), who became an archeologist, and also moved north (but from southern Arizona to north of Montana, into Alberta). Given this, maybe you will understand how I think only you can appreciate how this novel has affected me. For example, where in God's name did you learn about palimpsests!? And Cormac McCarthy, Mark Twain, I get it. But transmitting the feeling of a trowel scraping mud in search of someone else's heritage and making the reader feel the tension? Even so, it is no surprise to me that the work has received such great recognition. This is deeper than your canyon and plumbed by someone who has both traveled and imagined every inch. And conceived of characters worthy of the cultural landscapes we see with such clarity. Humanity. And horses. Timeless.
Leandrie Van Rooien
- Flag inappropriate
May 2, 2015
Loved it totally!
About the author
Malcolm Brooks was raised in the rural foothills of the California Sierras, and grew up around Gold Rush and Native American artifacts. A carpenter by trade, he has lived in Montana for most of two decades. His writing has appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal, Outside, Sports Afield, and Montana Quarterly, among others.
Malcolm Brooks was raised in the rural foothills of the California Sierras, and grew up around Gold Rush and Native American artifacts. A carpenter by trade, he has lived in Montana for most of two decades. His writing has appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal, Outside, Sports Afield, and Montana ...
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
