The Horseman's Tale

Book excerpt: A hypnotic narrative that twists through both light and dark as journaling therapy unlocks the troubled memories of a lonely veteran. Haunted by the death of his son in infancy and the love of his life many years later, Jake Montgomery grudgingly agrees to a form of “journal therapy” that allows him to expose and confront the sharp, insistent pain that he regularly buries with rage and scotch and television. As he writes, secrets tightly bound within him gradually unwind—first in racially segregated Ocala, Florida, in the 1950s, where his best childhood friend was a Puerto Rican jockey, then in Ireland, when a summer as a stable apprentice ushers in a new and all-consuming passion. Jake relives his experiments with free love in the 1960s, and is embroiled once more in choices of life and death on the battlefields of Vietnam, and later, as undercover intelligence officer in the countries of Eastern Europe. What begins as a journey chronicling youthful discovery spirals swiftly into spaces where loss overwhelms and the path chosen is one of ruthlessness and revenge. It is the birth, life, and death of a special horse that gives Jake a sense of purpose in his desperate search for a reason to carry on.