Horse People (2013)by Cary Holladay

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Horse People (2013)

by Cary Holladay 

Rapidan, Virginia

Virginia: 17/17

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   Finally closing out the Virginia sub-chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project with Horse People, the impressively obscure novel-in-the-form-of-a-short-story-collection that I had to buy off Amazon because the Los Angeles Public Library system does not own a copy, and there is no Ebook, and there is no Audiobook.   Despite the title, the book isn't about "Horse People" in the sense that I understand that term which is "rich people who don't have to work and spend all their time and energy riding horses and talking about them."  Rather, the central figures seem to be a succession of what you might call the Viriginia version of poor white people, followed over generations, with the addition of a wealthier white woman who is more in line with what I expected from the use of that term. 

  I'd never heard of the author before- she's published nine books, all but one on a small or university press (this book was published by the University of Louisiana press, and her most lasting relationship is with the University of Ohio press) but it looks like she mostly works in the area of short stories. I didn't love the Viriginia chapter- Virginia didn't have the Kook factor of North Carolina and South Carolina, and I didn't relate to the locations like I did in Washington DC and Maryland.  Bye Virginia- doubt I will be back!