A winner against the odds
Katie Grant
HORSE HEAVEN by Jane Smiley
Faber, £1 7 99, pp. 561
11 the ingredients for disaster are here: too many characters, not enough plot, too many pages, too much informa- tion and, usually the ultimate kiss of death, a hefty dose of anthropomorphism. But Horse Heaven is a triumph. It requires care- ful reading to avoid getting muddled, par- ticularly if, like me, you know almost nothing about American racing. But, rather like a racehorse, once you settle in and ease your way through the information that occasionally bunches up and blocks your vision, you can gallop on smoothly right to the finish. Smiley writes unaffected, rather restful prose. Her wit is gentle but all-pervasive and some of it is magic. Anybody who has ever seen a chestnut filly in the peak of condition will enjoy Residual, one of the
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equine heroines, coming out of her lay-off `like a debutante swathed in golden tulle', or Limitless, for whom galloping is the `default option'. In addition, quite apart from the externals, her word portraits of the workings of the minds of the animals involved are the best I have ever read, par- ticularly that of Justa Bob, a rival to Black Beauty if ever there was one. I am not ashamed to say I wept a small tear at the end for this unremarkable looking Califor- nia-bred brown gelding, whose 'settled opinion', unshaken by all the vicissitudes he experiences, is that 'the best winning mar- gin is (of course) just a bob'. But even with this old hero Smiley never lapses into senti- mentality, just indulges us lightly with a happy ending. Someone has already described Smiley as the Balzac of the late-20th-century Mid- west. And indeed, as with Balzac, her gift for chronicling the tiny nuances of human behaviour which make fictional characters come to life seldom falters. But Smiley's world is light not dark. No ultimate disaster looms, nothing really horrible happens even to the bent trainer who finds God, then reverts to type. Black clouds hover, sure, but this is not a novel about sin, guilt and retribution. Indeed, that is one of its charms. Nothing is overdone or overstated, neither goodness nor badness. This could make for a dull book, but Smiley avoids this. Her treatment of the marriage of the tycoon Al P. Maybrick and his wife Rosalind is a truly masterly por- trait of contemporary, moneyed America in which
he earned all day every day and she spent all day every day, and they both knew that she worked as hard as he did and that spending was no more or less a privilege for her than earning was for him.
However, Smiley allows neither to turn into a stereotype, not only through her tender witticisms — 'the sexiest thing he had ever said to her was "Rosalind, I have no taste whatsoever" ' — but also because this author is a genius at knowing just how to use human relationships with eachother and animals to make both man and beast rise off the page. The interaction between Al and Eileen, Rosalind's Jack Russell ter- rier, is particularly fine. Horse Heaven is painted on a huge can- vas, but Smiley does not use a broad brush. Some may find this irritating, as to start with it is necessary constantly to refer back to the cast usefully (or even essentially) listed at the beginning. However, that small effort is well worthwhile until the field opens up and you, like the glorious Limit- less, can sprint up to the finish line.
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