The Horse People — fascinating new novel

The Horse People, by Lafe Page, published by Xlibris Corporation in 2000, softcover, 251 pages, $18.69, or $8 for an online edition.

reviewed by Bethany M. Dunbar

Anyone who loves horses and especially horse racing will be interested in this behind-the-scenes look at the life of people who own, breed, and race thoroughbreds.

Lafe Page of Lowell is an expert because he lived it. He and his wife, Pat, moved to Lowell in 1991 after retiring from the horse business. He has been a writer since he was small, and his retirement from the active racing life has given him time to pursue his avocation of writing with equal vigor.

The result is a fascinating novel based on true events. The characters are drawn from people Mr. Page knew in the business, and they are drawn well:

The elevator stopped and the door opened with a sigh of its own and the man stepped out onto the beige carpeted foyer and looked over at the pretty young woman sitting behind the burled walnut desk. Her platinum blonde hair was highlighted by the early morning sun filtering through the tinted windows behind her and that brought a smile to the man’s face because he knew the halo created wasn’t earned.

"Good Morning, Mr. Bunk. How y’all this mawning?" she smiled.

"Morning. Have what’s his name park the car. Is Lamar here yet?"

"No sir. I haven’t seen him."

"Tell him to get his ass into my office as soon as he gets here," said Wilson Bunk vaguely remembering the night last week when she had danced naked with him and then smiling at her as he entered the double walnut doors to the right of her desk and touching her arm with his finger tip as he passed.

Thus the reader is introduced to Wilson Bunk, a man with more money than brains as we sometimes say in the Kingdom.

The main character in the book, Robert Pedersen, has some things in common with the author. The book starts when Robbie is young, and it skips quickly ahead to an accident that changes his life forever. His wife and daughter are killed, and Mr. Pedersen does not recover quickly.

Still he finds his way through life, and the book follows this path while telling a story about a disease that hit the racing world quite hard. It was a venereal disease that caused mares to lose their foals, contagious equine metritis.

"In 1978 the author was the manager of a prestigious thoroughbred breeding farm when a mysterious equine venereal disease closed the industry down," says the back of the book.

The book’s main plot is about the effort to track down information about how the disease was spread. The answer changes veterinary practices for good. The disease changes the lives of people who work in the business.

The story is gently told. It takes a few chapters to begin to empathize with Mr. Pedersen, but before long the reader is pulled into his world. Mr. Page’s writing is colorful and descriptive. It is appealing for its lack of hype. In this passage, Mr. Pedersen returns to his apartment, which had been robbed:

The feeling of outrage returned as he came through the door of his flat and he wished he had spent more time cleaning up before he left this morning. He closed the door behind himself and stood still. The one light he had left on cast more shadow than light and he felt a presence. He listened intently, but all he could hear was the sound of his heartbeat and wished for a moment it would be silent. That thought made him laugh and he strode across the room and opened the door to the bath with something of a flourish still laughing. He was almost disappointed to find himself alone.

It is like that, he thought, living alone. The conflicting feelings when you arrive home, to the emptiness of it, relief from the presence of others and the demands they make and then the disappointment at being alone, the emptiness. Sometimes being with people is like banging your head against the wall, it feels so good when you stop.

The Horse People is a fine book, steady and likable. It deserves a wide audience. It is available directly from the publisher at Orders@Xlibris.com. Mr. Page is working on a second edition that will be illustrated. He is also working on a sequel.