The Horse Whisperer

One morning while teenage Grace Maclean is riding Pilgrim, her goofy, loveable pony, she has a horrendous glass-shattering, bone-splintering, ligament-lynching meeting with a megaton truck that leaves her and her four-legged friend damaged in mind, body, and spirit. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, her jaded, brilliant, bitchy mom, Annie Graves (Kristin Scott Thomas in the 1998 film) is working out a wrinkle in her self-absorbed existence when she gets a call at her plush, Manhattan office about Grace's accident. Racked with guilt, Graves makes it her calling to find the mythical horse whisperer, an equine Zen master who has the ability to heal horses (and broken souls) with soothing words and a gentle touch. Just when it seems he can't be found, what do you know, she finds him. He arrives in the form of Tom Booker-- a rugged, sensitive, dreamy cowboy who helps Pilgrim and Grace repair their fractured selves. To add more mesquite to fire, Booker has a way with not-so-injured, attractive, married women--like Annie. As the plot thickens, so does the familial strife, which threatens to undo Booker's healing work.

Like an expert cinematographer, Evans deftly crafts each scene with precision and clarity, sprinkling in ominous signs and foreboding images. For example, in the opening paragraphs, as Annie starts out on the tragic ride, she comes across a bloody bird wing that seems to have fallen out of nowhere. The weight of impending doom is further strengthened by the truck driver's bad luck--he has a run-in with the highway patrol just moments before his meeting with Grace and Pilgrim. These not-so-subtle subliminal messages are masterfully stitched in throughout the story and may compel readers to act as if they were watching a B-grade horror movie, shouting aloud, "Don't go there!" However sentimental, The Horse Whisperer is an engaging read, sort of like a finely tuned, well-edited film. --Rebekah Warren

Product Description
A forty-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy country road, a teenage girl on horseback in its path. In a few terrible seconds the life of a family is shattered. And a mother's quest begins -- to save her maimed daughter and a horse driven mad by pain. It is an odyssey that will bring her to...

The Horse Whisperer

He is the stuff of legend. His voice can calm wild horses and his touch heal broken spirits. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, such men were once called Whisperers. Now Tom Booker, the inheritor of this ancient gift, is to meet his greatest challenge.

Annie Graves has traveled across a continent with her daughter, Grace, and their wounded horse, Pilgrim, to the Booker ranch in Montana. Annie has risked everything -- her career, her marriage, her comfortable life--in her desperate belief that the Whisperer can help them. The accident has turned Pilgrim savage. He is now so demented and dangerous that everyone says he should be destroyed. But Annie won't give up on him, for she feels his fate is inextricably entwined with that of her daughter, who has retreated into a heartrending, hostile silence. Annie knows that if the horse dies, something in Grace will die too.

In the weeks to come, under the massive sky of the Rocky Mountain Front, all their lives--including Tom Booker's--will be transformed forever in a way none could have foretold. At once an epic love story and a gripping adventure, The Horse Whisperer weaves an extraordinary tale of healing and redemption--a magnificent emotional journey that explores our ancient bonds with earth and sky and hearts untamed. It is a stirring elegy to the power of belief and self-discovery, to hopes lost and found again.

What follows is an incredible story of love and healing, loneliness and sorrow. The quiet mysteries and silent words of Tom not only tame the wild beast seething inside Pilgrim, but soothe the soul of Grace. Tom's simple truths and gentle ways also capture the heart of Annie. The story is deep and the characters true, rich and filled with emotion. Do not be surprised if the ending leaves you with a tear in your eye and an ache in your heart for all that was....and might have been.


I hope I dont sound like a parrot but...   April 22, 2003
Esme (UK)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

I first read this book when I was 15, but it's only now after reading it again a year later that I see the obvious talent in Evan's writing...

The Horse Whisperer is simply amazing. I am a keen rider, but I did not enjoy this book because it was based around horses and to be honest, I'd have enjoyed it just as much if it was based around almost anything [*Don't get me wrong, the book was packed full of equine action which was surprisingly accurate and descriptive and might I just add that that was the problem with the film. I felt that it was concentrating more on the action than emotion. I suggest to all to keep the film separate to the book and try not to think of them as the same story for they are both successes in different ways]

Evan's raw ability to describe and express human feelings, love, guilt, shame, blame and most of all pain so truthfully just makes your heart physically ache for the characters and often "bring you to the brink and back" yet you will still be drawn to read on. He has a superb talent of being able to describe from each character's point of view makes it all the more interesting. I think another reason for the book's popularity is its ability to allow the reader to relate to the characters because the feelings and thinking is so real. I don't think that the character were made to be liked but to be understood. It offers such a wide assortment of characters that just about all readers can find someone to relate to...

Looking at my cover I quote, "No. 1 international bestseller" and it truly deserves it. This book was not read because it was famous, it was famous because it was read.

It is a true master piece. I hope to see more and , if possible, greater things from this fabulous natural.


An amazing novel you wont forget!   April 6, 2000
Lea Mattcom
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

It's a peaceful, snow-covered morning. Grace and her horse Pilgrim, set off with Judith and her horse Gully, on what was supposed to be a relaxing ride. While going up an a hill, Gully slips on ice and while violently sliding down, knocks Pilgrim. As they fall, Judith is thrown out of the saddle, but her foot gets caught in the stirrup and she gets dragged. At the bottom of the hill, a large truck is coming past. Grace trys to reach Gully's reins and pull both the horse and Judith to safety, but Gully is startled by the truck driver and his horn. He pulls away from Grace's outstreached arms, and gets hit by the truck. Judith and Gully are killed. Even though Grace and Pilgrim survive, Grace has to lose half of one of her legs, and Pilgrim is so destraught by what happened, no one can go near him, for he is now a dangerous, untrusting horse. Grace's mom, Annie doesn't want Pilgrim put down, despite the advice of Harry Logan, the vet. She feels if Pilgrim dies, something in Grace will die too. Instead she finds out about 'whisperers', people who have a special, almost magical talent around horses. When Annie, Grace and Pilgrim journey to the countryside of Montana, to seek help from the horse whisperer, Tom Booker, none of them are prepared for the changes and miracles, that are going to take place in their lives.

An thrilling read! Don't miss out on this beautiful story!


A Great Story   August 7, 2000
jfallen
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

The kind of story all first time novelists hope to achieve. Pilgrim thinks he failed Grace. Grace thinks she failed Pilgrim. Grace's stubborn mother refuses to give up and seeks a reluctant Whisperer to get the two back together, then comes face to face with her own crisis in the relationship with her husband. A very well written novel and a great story.