The Mare
ABOUT
THE BOOK
When Velveteen Vargas, an eleven-year-old Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn, comes to stay with a family in upstate New York, what begins as a two-week visit blossoms into something much more significant. Soon Velvet finds herself torn between her host family-Ginger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic; and Paul, a college professor-and her own deeply tormented mother. The one constant becomes Velvet’s newly discovered passion for horse riding-and especially for an abused, unruly mare named Fugly Girl. A stirring and deeply felt novel, The Mare is Mary Gaitskill’s most poignant and powerful work yet-a stunning exploration of a girl and her horse, and of the way we connect with people from all walks of life.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Complex and challenging characters illuminate this story of the best (white liberal) intentions gone awry. When a well-to-do woman opens her home to an underprivileged Dominican girl, her self-congratulations are overwhelmed by obsession, guilt and confusion.