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The story of a horse and the woman who loves her―a lively first novel of not-daughters and non-mothers; animals and animal bodies; and how we find freedom, care, and community in unexpected places.
For a long time, a woman lives with her husband and their dog. She teaches writing courses, plods away at a book of her own, and doesn't think much about not having a child. Then the dog dies, and a doctor's visit reveals she can't have children even if she wanted to. Out of these conditions, a sudden, strangely familiar thought prevails: horses.
When she hears about a mare whose owner needs help part-time, it seems like an ideal arrangement―and perhaps something to help with the emptiness, diagnosable and otherwise, that she's begun to feel. She has no problem sharing; she shares a garden with the children next door and chores with her husband. The horse will be something to care for, just two days a week, without getting in too deep.
But as she takes up riding lessons and medical treatments, walks and brushes and dreams of the horse, her affection develops into obsession―forcing her to confront what it means to love a being who does not belong to her. Moving with grace, humor, and probing insight, Emily Haworth-Booth's Mare pulses with life and feeling and introduces an irresistible literary voice.
"A marvelous exploration of what it means to be a woman, to live in a woman's body, to contemplate motherhood—and it is equally about the relationships between people and animals, women and girls and horses. Every step of the way, [Emily Haworth-Booth] resists easy answers...A lyrical, exquisitely detailed account of one woman's inner and outer worlds." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Some readers will find themselves wanting more from the fragmentary narrative, which often leaves thoughts half formed, but Haworth-Booth ably captures early middle-age disquiet and the soothing balm of animal companionship. Fans of Sheila Heti will appreciate this." —Publishers Weekly
""The reader becomes immersed in the narrator's internal world that Haworth-Booth conveys so skillfully. The rhythmic, poetic prose, though quiet and meditative, is simultaneously propulsive, such that the reader will grapple with the woman's thoughts along with her." —Booklist
"Emily Haworth-Booth writes the heartbreak of a body, of the world, of caring, with immense tenderness and humor. I loved the peripheries of solitude and communion traced in this wild, melancholy, marvelous novel." ―Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists and Long Distance
This information about Mare was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Emily Haworth-Booth teaches at the Royal Drawing School and is an illustrator, a graphic novelist, and a children's author of three books for children: The King Who Banned the Dark (short-listed for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Illustration, and the Klaus Flugge Prize), The Last Tree, and Protest! Mare is her debut book for adults. She lives in Devon with her husband, dog, and several horses.
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