Night Ride Home - Hardcover

Esstman, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151002886 ISBN 13: 9780151002887

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997

Synopsis

On the farmland along the Missouri River in the years after WWII, Nora Mahler led a good life boarding horses on her family's ranch. Her son, Simon, and daughter, Clea, inherited from her a love for horses. But when Simon is killed in a riding accident, her marriage and the world she has made for herself are shattered. Her husband, Neal, dismantles her business and sends the horses away, insisting that Nora sell the farm and move the family to Chicago. She refuses. Neal leaves her, taking Clea with him. Soon after they've gone, Ozzie Kline, a horse wrangler who has yearned for Nora since they were teenage lovers, comes to help her rebuild the farm. With Ozzie and Malaak, the mare they train together, Nora catches a glimpse of the happiness she never knew with Neal. As they fix breakfast before going out to the stables or sitting on the porch watching the sung go down, the bond between them grows stronger and Nora's sense of peace deepens. One day watching Ozzie at work in the stab

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Esstman lives in Oakton, Virginia. Hallmark Hall of Fame has made into television movies both this book (under the title Secrets) and her second book, Night Ride Home. Esstman has received the Redbook fiction award, nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Library of Virginia Fiction Award, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Reviews

Youthful passions still burn strong as Esstman (The Other Anna, not reviewed), in a second novel that tries hard to tug the heartstrings but only occasionally succeeds, profiles a woman who finds the courage to reclaim her life after losing her son. Set on a farm on the banks of the Missouri River shortly after WW II, the story limns in self-consciously lyrical prose a woman's belated discovery, in the aftermath of a tragedy, of unsuspected strengths and middle-aged passion, making this a sort of Bridges of Madison County with a happy ending. When 16-year-old Simon is thrown by his mother's favorite horse, Zad, and dies, the Mahler family, never very cohesive anyway, falls apart. Events before and after the tragedy are recalled and analyzed by family members, as well as by Ozzie Kline, the wrangler who has loved horses--and Nora--since he and she were both teenagers. Nora, who was especially close to her son Simon, breaks down completely; husband Neal has her hospitalized and subjected to electric shock treatment. He also shoots Zad, sends the remaining horses away, and tries to sell the farm, though it's been in Nora's family for 70 years. Ozzie, who'd been working on the farm, disappears after the accident but soon returns to help Nora, who refuses to give up the farm. While Nora slowly recovers, Neal, using daughter Clea as a pawn, continues his verbal abuse of Nora: Refusing to give her a divorce, he threatens to hospitalize her again. But Nora, with her mother's and Ozzie's help, finds the strength to stand up to him and choose the kind of life she loves--working with horses--and finally admit her enduring love for Ozzie. One of those reassuring it's never-too-late-to-live-and-love- stories that will resonate with aging boomers and 40-plus romantics. (First printing of 75,000; $75,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The flood-soaked ground is so slippery near the river town of LaCote, Missouri, in the late 1940s that Simon Mahler falls to his death from his mother Nora's horse. Angered by this senselessness, his father, Neal, takes revenge and shoots the beloved Arabian in the head. Nora is devastated. With both her son and her horse gone, she withdraws into herself and is eventually admitted to a mental hospital, where she undergoes electroshock treatment. When her globe-trotting mother, Maggie, realizes what is happening, she arranges for her release. In an attempt to force Nora to sell the farm, Neal moves himself and their daughter, Clea, to Chicago. Ozzie Kline, Nora's childhood sweetheart who never quit loving her, returns to the farm as a hired hand. He takes on horses to board and finds her a new filly. Their emotional relationship changes as she allows herself to feel something beyond her sorrow. Each chapter, presented in different narrative voices, reveals aspects of Nora's disintegrating marriage and her growing affection for Ozzie from several points of view; however, the progression of the narrative of this two-hankie, horse lover's tale is also impeded by that structure. Hallmark Productions has acquired the film rights. Jennifer Henderson

The loss of a child, a horse, and a marriage provides the framework around which Esstman drapes insightful writing and fine storytelling. Set in Missouri in 1947, the story is told by each character in turn?a mother, a father, a daughter, a grandmother, and a potential lover. Each contributes his or her own version of a marriage's disintegration, accelerated by the untimely death of Simon, the golden boy. Simon's mother, Nora, and her mother, Maggie, have drifted through life, never fighting for anything, defined by husbands and fathers. But when Nora's husband threatens their continued ownership of a ranch passed to them from Maggie's mother, the two women reclaim their matriarch's "terrible strength and efficiency" to ensure their survival. Although the time period is not as richly detailed as one might wish, the ranch setting is marvelously alive. Add to this mix a compelling love interest and film rights sold to Hallmark, and this novel is an essential purchase.?Terrill Persky, Woodridge P.L., Naperville, Ill.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151002886
• ISBN 13: 9780151002887
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336