Description: Trainers and track brats; hustlers and handlers; horse masseurs and horse-obsessed girls; jumpy jockeys, billionaire breeders, uncanny vets; and the unpredictable, irrepressible Thoroughbreds at the center: a novel of horse racing that crosses the humor of Moo with the emotional breadth of A Thousand Acres -- Jane Smiley at the top of her form.

Horse Heaven spans two years on the circuit, traveling from California to Kentucky, Saratoga to Miami, Paris to Hanoi, and goes deep into the hearts of the very different kinds of people who find themselves enraptured by the horse. Out of these disparate lives equinely united, Smiley creates a riveting narrative of a particular corner of contemporary America, a deeply engaging story of love and longing, greed and corruption, our mystical bond with animals, and, above all, our profound desire to connect -- sexually, emotionally, spiritually -- with creatures outside of ourselves.

The humans:

Rosalind -- wealthy, beautiful, profoundly lonely, she finds her carefully cultivated exterior shattered by an intense extramarital intimacy. But is her lover's physical understanding (of horses, of women) enough? Farley -- a trainer who keeps a copy of "The Tibetan Book of Thoroughbred Racing" pinned up on his office door. Elizabeth Zada -- an animal prognosticator who can read horses as they "stream" images, who finds that menopause opens her sexuality and her psychic powers. Buddy -- whose desire to be prince among trainers leads him into a last, terrible swindle -- in spite of his newly-found connection to Jesus. Deirdre -- a tone woman trainer in a decidedly male world: she won't use her Irish charm to stay financially afloat. And the three "kids":Audrey -- a young girl whose love for a broken-down race horse may lead her out of the grief of her father's death; Roberto -- the sixteen-year-old jockey who's got "the hands" and the smarts; Jesse -- the eighth grader who can't save himself from his gambler father, lost to the secrets of the track...

And the horses:

Epic Steam -- huge, black, rippling with power, a young male on the verge of destroying everything around him. Froney's Sis -- a filly orphaned at birth, unsure of her footing. Residual and Limitless -- perfect runners who will, with preternatural grace, win millions for their owners. And Justa Bob -- the lovable personality who always wins by a nose, a "claimer" who passes from owner to owner on a heart-stopping journey down from the winner's circle...

Part satire, part novel of the heart, Horse Heaven presents in vivid color a deeply engaging, enigmatic world of its own, one that is also a classic slice of America.

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