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Summary
Summary
An unforgettable story of men and horses, the American West, and the dream of a ticket out
* A May 2012 Indie Next Pick *
Will Testerman is a young Wyoming horse trainer determined to make something of himself. Money is tight at the family ranch, where he's living again after a disastrous end to his job on the Texas show-horse circuit. He sees his chance with a beautiful quarter horse, a filly that might earn him a reputation, and spends his savings to buy her.
Armed with stories and the confidence of youth, he devotes himself to her training -- first, in the familiar barns and corrals of home, then on a guest ranch in the rugged Absaroka mountains, and, in the final trial, on the glittering, treacherous polo fields of southern California.
With Boleto , Alyson Hagy delivers a masterfully told, exquisitely observed novel about our intimate relationships with animals and money, against the backdrop of a new West that is changing forever.
Author Notes
Alyson Hagy is the author of Ghosts of Wyoming and Snow, Ashes . Ghosts of Wyoming won the High Plains Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Laramie, Wyoming.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A restless young cowboy bets it all on a horse he raises from filly to mare in Hagy's (Ghosts of Wyoming) beautiful tale of redemption and perseverance. Will Testerman, raised with two brothers on a small ranch in Lost Cabin, Wyo., by a critical father and a mother battling cancer, returns home after a stint grooming show horses in Texas ends in melodramatic disaster. Determined to redeem himself, he spends his hard-earned savings on a "strong-legged filly with papers" and devotes himself to rearing and training her, despite his doubting father and older, more successful brothers. Once through the Wyoming winter, Will works as a "corral boss" on a nearby ranch for the summer before going to the esteemed California "Estanza Flora" ranch to train horses on the polo circuit, a challenging but rewarding job, and where he continues to train and develop his horse. In measured, textured prose, Hagy finesses the nuances of equestrian life, from the knowing twitch of the filly's ears to Will naming his horse "Boleto" ("ticket"), signifying his hoped for success. Joining such resonant talents as Annie Proulx and Kent Haruf, Hagy is fast becoming a recognizable author of the American West. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents Inc. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
He's come of age, but the appealing young cowboy still has life lessons to learn in this beautifully observed third novel from Hagy (Snow, Ashes, 2007, etc.). Will Testerman knows horses. He was 8 when he bought a pony and 16 when he started wrangling; he's worked the rodeo circuit. But there's little to keep him home on the small ranch outside Lost Cabin, Wyo. It can't sustain his family. Both his embittered father and his brother Everett must work second jobs in town. Besides, Will, now 23, has a restless spirit. His father sees him as an impractical dreamer, but his schoolteacher mother encourages him to spread his wings. Will tended her during her breast-cancer scare; that's now in remission. The novel opens with Will buying a beautiful 2-year-old filly for a bargain price. She will be a "development project" for the patient Will. He talks to her a lot, building trust. He won't ride her yet (no saddle until she's three), but they'll be going to California together to meet Don Enrique. Hagy leaves the name hanging, a nice bit of suspense. First they will go to a guest ranch near Cody, where Will has a summer job as corral boss. Hagy demonstrates an easy mastery of her material; whether it's horsey stuff, a sex scene or an ugly poker game, she nails it. The estancia in Anaheim is a shock. It turns out Don Enrique is an Argentine businessman who hosts polo games. His manager is a swine. Five frightened, underfed Argentine teenagers do the barn work. Will's fantasy of learning the polo business, unwisely based on a single conversation with the Don, begins to crumble. Will his innate decency hobble him with this tough, mercenary crowd? And can he protect his beloved filly from these rapacious rich folks? It will prove a hard landing for them both. Plot lags behind character, but Hagy reads horses and people so well you won't mindso much.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* With a keen understanding of the New West and in prose so beautiful that it reads like poetry, Hagy (Ghosts of Wyoming, 2010) follows Will Testerman as he strives to realize his goal of becoming a horse trainer. His father, who works two jobs to support his failing ranch, thinks his son is a dreamer, which is the ultimate insult in rural Wyoming. Even after a disastrous stint on the Texas show-horse circuit, Will spends his savings to buy an impressive quarter horse, convinced the move will make his reputation and grant him entree into the elite world of training polo horses. He starts a strict regimen, ever so carefully bringing his young filly along, first at home, then at a guest ranch in the Absaroka Mountains, and, finally, at the deluxe farm of a fabulously wealthy Argentine businessman. But Will's straight-arrow upbringing and unfailing reverence for all aspects of tending to horses prove to be his undoing in the hedonistic, flashy world of polo players. Hagy exquisitely delineates the magnificence of horses and the western landscape even as she pointedly critiques class warfare in the New West.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WITH his graceful depictions of the embattled American West, Wallace Stegner remains unrivaled in his ability to humanize the clash between frontier beauty and "progress." But there is always more gold in those hills, and Alyson Hagy isn't a writer to mistake pyrite for something precious. In her third novel, "Boleto," the alluring wilds of Wyoming and the horses wrangled there come with price tags affixed. The question is: Are we buying? Good stories teach us how to read them, and the opening pages of "Boleto" are entertaining, entrancing teachers. In short order, we meet Will Testerman, a 23-year-old horseman "known to smash himself up among his dreams." Following a string of far-flung jobs, Will has returned to his family's ranch in Lost Cabin, Wyo. A year later, after weathering his father's air of disappointment and his mother's cancer treatments, Will (who is more patient and less stubborn than his older brothers) swings back into the worn saddle of his ambitions. It is testament to Hagy's narrative instincts that we arrive so quickly at the novel's engaging premise: When a remarkable bay filly is offered for sale, the aptly named Will cobbles a chance encounter with a kingpin of the polo horse business into a plan. Cashier's check in hand, "he reminded himself of his promise. This was a business proposition. If he was to buy this horse, it would be a decision based on business." Having established the central conflict between a man's love for horses and his desire to turn a profit, "Boleto" chronicles Will's purchase of the filly, his departure for his summer job as corral boss at the Black Bell Ranch in the Absaroka Mountains and his eventual move to the Estancia Flora polo compound near Anaheim, Calif. His character on this journey is satisfyingly complex; here is a young man who proves at once compassionately idealistic and unapologetically self-serving. Deep in his history lies a particular tenderness toward his mother, who has posed, since his boyhood, an enduring question: "Who are you today, Will Testerman?" As the query suggests, the answer varies day by day. At one time, Will is the man who nurses his mother through her illness. At another, he's caught with his pants down (literally) in a show horse stable with a teenage girl. Hagy often dazzles with her descriptions of the Wyoming landscape and wildlife. Whether it's the corral of the Testerman ranch, the rugged passes of the Black Bell Ranch or the depressed outskirts of Anaheim, the settings glimmer with well-chosen metaphors. One afternoon at the guest ranch, Will and his co-workers head into the mountains: "They rode along the river to the east and to the west, and he watched the first of the falling aspen leaves spin into the clear river water as if they were golden coins flung from an exuberant hand." Soon after, Hagy further amplifies the tension between nature and commerce as a ranchman's shepherd ambles beside the horses: "The jingle of the dog's tags was the same as the sound of warm money in a man's pocket." Another delight stems from Hagy's occasional liberties with point of view. While we remain mostly in Will's body and mind, the perspective sometimes shifts for a sentence or two to that of the lovely bay filly who will eventually be named Boleto (Spanish for "Ticket"). "She listened as hard as she thought she ought to listen," Hagy writes in one passage, and in another, she "continued to inhale his scent with long, slow breaths through her nostrils, and she continued to watch him, but she had made up her mind about him - for the moment." The novel does falter at times, thanks in part to the same kind of overreaching we see in the characters. Hagy puts a lot of stories in play, slowing and cluttering the drama. She slows things further by endlessly modifying her dialogue: if we hear a character barking, "You get out of my goddamn sight," do we really need to be told that her cheeks are "splotched with temper"? And as Will is pulled first here, then there by one minor character after another, pages and pages pass with no mention of the filly that will become his ticket. THESE interruptions should matter less once Will arrives with his filly at Estancia Flora, the sprawling domain of the Argentine polo pony mogul. But just as he's on the cusp of fulfilling the plan set forth in the opening pages, the central conflict shifts as abruptly as the bedrock along a California fault line. The estancia, it turns out, is home to a number of Argentine laborers who seem exploited and, to varying degrees, abused. The emergence of this new antagonistic relationship between wealth and labor, and the resulting sociopolitical drumbeats of the story, encroach mightily on the organic development of Will's character. More important, they threaten to drown out the scenic hoof-strikes of the horses and the bruised, beating hearts of the men who ride them. In the end, while it is true that Will acts of his own volition, and while the choice he must make is one of consequence, the predicament feels planted rather than grown, as conspicuous as a mulched tulip bed set down among the cactuses. Bruce Machart teaches creative writing and literature at Bridgewater State University. His most recent book is the story collection "Men in the Making."
Library Journal Review
Living on his family's Wyoming ranch after his job on the Texas show-horse circuit ends badly, Will Testerman buys a beautiful filly he's seen-an expensive investment for this intermittently employed horse trainer. Putting some personal misadventures behind him, he has set his sights on California and the more lucrative world of polo horses. Although he has brief affairs with several young women, Will is careful to avoid any connections that might slow him down, and he refuses to name the filly he hopes he can train and eventually sell. Saying a reluctant good-bye to his ill mother, an ex-girlfriend, and the leaden expectations of his father, his brothers, and his small-town life, he tries to begin again, alone and friendless, with his horses on the West Coast. Vivid descriptions of horses and their caretakers' lives frame the novel and slowly draw readers into caring about the taciturn, cautious, yet unpredictable Will. VERDICT Hagy (Ghosts of Wyoming) knows her territory, describing dude ranch employees, harnesses, trails, horses, and human conflict in lyrical but concise language. This realistic tale about a modern cowboy will be popular with lovers of literary fiction and American Western culture.-John R. Cecil, Austin, TX (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.