A review by mary_soon_lee
Falling from Horses by Molly Gloss

5.0

Summer reading book reviews, book #10, "Falling From Horses" by Molly Gloss.... This is a beautifully written tale centered around Bud, a boy growing up on a ranch in the 1920s and 1930s, who then moves to Hollywood in 1938 to work with horses in cowboy movies. The spare, poetic style reminds me both of other work by Molly Gloss and of the Norwegian author, Per Petterson. The book shifts from sections narrated by Bud (starting with his bus journey to Hollywood in 1938), and third-person sections set in the 1920s and 1930s that concern Bud's parents at least as much as Bud. I particularly love the voice of Bud-as-narrator, who, many years later, looks back on himself as a boy. I love the prose, the characters, the story itself. This is easily the best book I have read so far this summer, but it is deeper, harsher, less straightforwardly pleasurable than Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series. I note that characters in Molly Gloss's earlier book, "The Hearts of Horses," resurface here, but "Falling From Horses" can be read on its own.