Still Life with Horses

by Jean Harper

Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. Winner of The Howling Bird Press 2017 Nonfiction Prize. Through the lens of her relationship with a beloved horse, STILL LIFE WITH HORSES chronicles the quest to live ethically while navigating a changing personal and professional landscape. The book explores how animal relationships can keep us grounded when human relationships fail. A New Englander by birth and an Indiana transplant, Harper examines the process of embracing and understanding America's rural heartland as home.

"STILL LIFE WITH HORSES will make you fall in love...with the strength and silence of horses and learn to believe in the healing power of giving oneself fully to the care and pleasures of another living being. Honest, unflinching, it shimmers with the light of life unfolding."—Barb Shoup

144 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2017

Reviews

[SPE]

A slow compelling cantor of love.

Poetic, touching. A counterpoint rhythm from tension in a bad relationship to the joy and comfort of loving.

Highly recommend for anyone who has loved an animal. Or anyone who has loved and nurtured a child not their own.

[Trish Campbell]

I enjoyed this book her relationship with h buddy is heart warming and saves her from such sadness in the rest of her life . I grow to love buddy

[Lisa Romeo]

This is a stunningly beautiful literary memoir that anyone who has ever ridden, owned, cared for, loved, or simply admired horses will treasure. When the narrator begins riding, and eventually buy a horse at a turning point in her adult life, the relationship she develops with her horse, as well as with other horse people, becomes the foundation on which she is able to build a new life. The way this author describes and demonstrates the bond between horse and human is one of the very best examples I've read (and I've read a lot of books about horses and humans!). Even the smallest interaction is gorgeously rendered and saturated with meaning. But it isn't sentimental at all. There's such a strong story of human growth at the center, and all along a reader understands that none of it is possible without her beloved Buddy. I read it in a weekend and even at 2 a.m., wished it would go on and on.