Laughing in the Hills

This wonderful 1980 horse racing classic never loses its luster or charm. Author Bill Barich explores explores the day-to-day internal world of horse racing― from the backside to the backstretch. This entertaining story of the lives and tribulations of various racetrack personalities is sure to extract every human emotion. The author's summer adventure after a family tragedy finds him living the life many diehard racing enthusiasts wish they could. Barich's adventure discovers more than he could ever imagine about something much bigger than racing-life itself.

Barich debuted in 1980 with this magnificent meditation on horse-racing, yet the rich, full portrait he paints of the track and its colorful citizenry--human and hoofed--is only prelude to the work's enduring appeal. It is really a finely crafted memoir about loss and longing, renewal and affirmation.

Its opening is irresistible: "For me it did not begin with the horses. They came later, after a phone call and a simple statement of fact: Your mother has cancer." Barich copes with that horrible reality as best he can, losing his pain in the drama of the track, and finding himself in a pilgrimage through Renaissance literature and the memories of an earlier part of his life lived in Florence, Italy. If the combination seems a longshot at best, remember: the greater the odds, the better the pay-off, and Laughing in the Hills pays off staggeringly.