About Ghost Horse
• Publisher: Gival Press
Set amidst the social tensions of 1970’s Houston, Ghost Horse tells the story of eleven-year-old Buddy Turner’s shifting alliances within his fragmented family and with two other boys—one Anglo, one Latino—in their quest to make a Super-8 animated movie. As his father’s many secrets begin to unravel, Buddy discovers the real movie: the intersection between life as he sees it and the truth of his own past. In a vivid story of love, friendship, and betrayal, Ghost Horse explores a boy’s swiftly changing awareness of himself and the world through the lens of imagination.
Praise for Ghost Horse
“An elegy for a lost father, an unforgettable fable of the power of art, Ghost Horse weaves a singular spell, captivating the reader and never letting go.”—Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master’s Son, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
“In Ghost Horse, his excellent debut novel, Thomas McNeely skillfully offers up the dark mysteries of the adult world through the eyes of a child. Wise, insightful, and exquisitely written, it lays bare the heartbreak of family life and lost friendship against the back drop of class and racial difference. Ghost Horse is that rare fictional rendering that truly illuminates real life. —Rishi Reddi, author of Karma and Other Stories, winner of the L. L. Winship / PEN New England Award
Thomas McNeely is a beautiful writer. I’ve read drafts of this book over the last ten years and I’ve been waiting all that time for the finished product. This is an incredible book about love and family and growing up. But mostly it’s about the mysteries of the human heart. —Stephen Elliott, editor of The Rumpus; author of Happy Baby and The Adderall Diaries
“Thomas H. McNeely’s moving, darkly beautiful debut novel, Ghost Horse, turns the emotional messiness of family life into something gripping and mysterious. One boy’s coming-of-age in 1970s Texas becomes the deeply compelling story of all who have ever shouldered an unwanted secret. McNeely is an astoundingly gifted writer exploring—to great effect—the vagaries and surprises of desire. —Daphne Kalotay, author of Russian Winter and Sight Reading
“In this dark, swirling, atmospheric novel Thomas McNeely brings to life the world of Buddy Turner and his deeply troubled parents and grandparents during a few desperate months in the mid-70s. Even as Buddy struggles to keep faith with his film about the ghost horse and his collaborator, Alex, the adults around him keep changing shape, keep lying. I know of few other novels that so powerfully evoke the chaos and powerlessness of childhood, even fewer that do so with such power and brilliance. Ghost Horse is a wonderful and compulsively readable debut.”—Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy and The House on Fortune Street, winner of the L.L. Winship / PEN New England Award for Fiction
“As if Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson teamed up to write a 1970’s Texas YA novel that went off the rails somewhere – in a very, very good way.” —Lisa Peet, LibraryJournal
About Thomas McNeely
A native of Houston, Texas, Thomas H. McNeely has received fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, the Dobie Paisano Program at the University of Texas at Austin, and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well from the MacDowell Colony, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. His fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Epoch, and has been anthologized in Algonquin Books’ Best of the South and What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers. His non-fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter and The Rumpus. Ghost Horse, winner of the 2013 Gival Press Novel Award, is his first book. He teaches in the Emerson College Honors Program and the Stanford Online Writing Studio, and lives with his wife and daughter in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Find out more about Thomas at his website.
Thomas’ Tour Stops
Monday, October 13th: From the TBR Pile
Tuesday, October 14th: Patricia’s Wisdom
Thursday, October 16th: Fuelled by Fiction
Monday, October 20th: Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Tuesday, October 21st: Book Loving Hippo
Wednesday, October 22nd: Walking With Nora
Thursday, October 23rd: Readers’ Oasis
Monday, October 27th: Mom in Love with Fiction
Thursday, October 30th: Priscilla and Her Books
Thursday, October 30th: Book Wookie