The Horse by Willy Vlautin was a very random selection for me, but I am glad I picked it up.

67 year old Al Ward is a jaded, drunken country singer/songwriter living alone in an abandoned mine in the Nevada desert where he goes to try and dry out. Only his memories are keeping him company until one day an old injured horse appears blinded and bloody at his door. 

‘There’s a horse’, he whispered. ‘An old horse that’s standing in front of my house. He’s blind and he won’t eat and I don’t know what to do.’

When the horse doesn’t leave and coyotes and bad weather start to close in Al decides he needs to try and save the beast. It is after all a kind of metaphor of himself. His journey with the horse is interspersed with memories of his life as a musician, his bandmates and his loves.

“…I like sad songs and sad singers the best…You write with a broken heart and I understand broken hearts.”

The Horse is a short, bleak, melancholic but heartfelt story about devotion to creativity, loneliness, addiction, regret, love and the underbelly of America.