Book Review: Why Do Horses Run? by Cameron Stewart
WINNER OF THE 2025 MUD LITERARY PRIZE
Missing in every sense of the word, a man walks into the landscape and doesn’t stop. In all weather and across all kinds of terrain, Ingvar walks until he can go no further, then gets up and does it again the following day, week after week, month after month. For three years he doesn’t know why he keeps going, or whether he is walking towards something or away from it.
Until he comes to a remote tropical valley harbouring secrets and misfits. There a recently widowed woman, Hilda, allows Ingvar to live in a shed on her property. He hasn’t spoken for three years and Hilda chats frequently with her dead husband, but somehow they tolerate each other as they both struggle with the haunting impact of their pasts and grief that won’t let them go.
Steeped in mystery and foreboding, Why Do Horses Run? asks crucial questions about love and loss, and what might make a person never want to be found. Simple, profound, transformative and deeply moving, this indelible debut explores the propensity of the natural world to both heal and harm, as well as the ineradicable power of kindness and community.
Released April 2024
My Thoughts:Why Do Horses Run? by Cameron Stewart was taking me to and from work and following me around the house for the last week and a half. The narration is excellent, and I don’t rate that lightly because this is an emotionally fraught read, and it takes skill to convey that when reading aloud.
This is a story about grief and loss, coming back from the brink, the randomness of life and death, and the kindness of strangers. It’s a deep story, right from the outset, steeped as it is in trauma and grief. The story itself unfolds in pieces, revealing itself layer by layer with a combination of literary devices – diary entries, a ghostly presence, and the present day perspective.
This is not the sort of novel you say you enjoyed. It’s more one that you appreciate and ponder over. At times, it was sorrowful. At other times, it made me angry. Many times, I laughed. In the end, I was left feeling a sense of awe at Cameron’s vision. The irony of reading a novel about the randomness of death at the same time as unexpectedly losing my beautiful beloved old dog is not lost on me.
