June 28, 2009

Memoir features horse whisperer

A Tale of Two HorsesBROKEN
A Love Story
By Lisa Jones
Scribner. 275 pp. $25


Lisa Jones's memoir is framed by two vivid incidents, both involving horses. At the opening, she watches Stanford Addison, a quadriplegic Arapaho healer and horse whisperer who lives on Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation, teach clients the art of gentling. Later, Addison supervises a horribly botched gelding. Jones is far more focused on what the first event says about Addison than on the implications of the second. She becomes a frequent visitor to Addison's home and a believer in his mystical powers. Her spiritual search is at the center of the book, but it is not the most interesting part. Self-searching is a tricky topic, and it is also hard to see Addison in the same idealized light that Jones does.
Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.

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