Ghost Horse

by Thomas H. McNeely

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.

Genres: Race

260 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2014

About the author

A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer in fiction at Stanford University, Thomas H. McNeely's work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Epoch, and has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery Stories; What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers; and Algonquin Books’ Best of the South:From the Second Decade of New Stories from the South. He has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dobie Paisano Program at the University of Texas at Austin, and the MacDowell Colony. He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writers’ Studio and the Emerson College Honors Program. Ghost Horse, his first novel, winner of the Gival Press Novel Award, was published in October 2014.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghost Horse
by Thomas H. McNeely
Gival Press, September 2014
260 pages, $20
Reviewed by Michelle Newby

Thomas H. McNeely’s Ghost Horse, winner of the Gival Press Novel Award, follows eleven-year-old Buddy Turner, on the cusp of puberty, as he tries to make sense of an adult Wonderland where everything is not as it seems. Buddy and his best friend Alex Torres want to make movies. The eponymous Ghost Horse is the combination animation/live action short they’re working on when Buddy’s life turns inside out and upside down. Knowing the illusions made possible in movies, Buddy is always trying to determine which movie of his life is the real one. His father’s version? His mother’s? His Grandmother’s? Which version is his? He uses the language and techniques of movie making to disassociate when circumstances become too much for him to process.

The movie serves as a metaphor for the upheaval in his world and the premise of the movie morphs as Buddy’s world changes, reflecting his desperate wish for a superhero to fix everything, to set the world right side up and dispense justice. Buddy expects his father to be this hero but when his father proves to be all-too-human Buddy tries to assume this responsibility. His mission is to bring his father home.

Ghost Horse is set in 1970s Houston with all the attendant strife between Anglos and Latinos. Buddy lives with his mother and attends Catholic school in a neighborhood undergoing changes as the population of Hispanics increases and White Flight accelerates. Buddy’s life is in turmoil as his separated parents attempt to straighten out their future and drag Buddy along for the unhappy ride. His father has moved in with Buddy’s grandmother, Gramma Turner, on the “right” side of town, and she has been allowed to insist that Buddy change schools because she pays the tuition. Buddy’s father, Jimmy, is engaged in a campaign of appeasement with Gramma Turner. “Look,” [he tells Buddy],”We just have to tell my mother what she wants to hear for a while, then we can do what we want.” Buddy’s new parochial school has an Anglo population and is seemingly staffed with Eagle Forum marionettes who allow a Lord of the Flies mentality to prevail. Buddy’s new (sort of) friend at this school is Simon Quine, a malevolent Eddie Haskell. Simon deals in the currency of secrets and in Buddy he has found the mother lode, “…secrets as powerful as magic.”

Ghost Horse has a simple plot that allows the complexity of the characterizations and the language to shine. The pace is slow at times, but not discouragingly so, and as the denouement draws together it picks up speed like a passenger train. McNeely has a gift for conveying the essence of a character and a situation succinctly but vividly. Buddy’s mother tells him there are two kinds of people in Houston – those that read the Post and those that read the Chronicle. Simon’s father reads the Chronicle and lobs questions at Buddy that “…paint a world, like Bible stories, of shining and embattled certainty.” A character responds to the formidable Gramma Turner, “…her voice like an animal testing a branch.” McNeely also knows when to let silence speak loudly and how to let mystery reveal. When you finish Ghost Horse you will still have a couple of questions about these characters and what really happened. Just like real life.

The atmosphere of Ghost Horse is heavy with portent and the description is appropriately stark. McNeely describes an alley as “…the world of Dumpsters and parking garages and an electrical station’s humming metal thicket, the world behind the world…” The widower Mr. Torres’ house is small, “…as close and tight as a shoeshine box.” A humid August day in the swamp is “…very warm, the sky frosted with a high, thin haze the color of beach glass.”

Adults are as cyphers to children and McNeely has a remarkable ability to viscerally recall what it was like to be an eleven-year-old boy and channel that onto the page. As children will, Buddy takes what he hears literally, not catching the innuendo and obscure references used by the adults. He listens to his parents’ phone conversations. ”Who left who? his father said. I didn’t mean to, his mother said.” His mother tries to explain to Buddy why she’s rejecting his father’s overtures, “Because this is what daddy does. He gives and gives and it’s never what you want, but somehow you always end up owing him.” His father tells him, “We just want what’s best for you, Buddy. Understand? That’s why we’re doing this. All of it’s for you.” Buddy instinctually rejects this as untrue. No wonder he’s confused.

Buddy finds himself caught between all of the warring parties – the adults he is supposed to be able to depend on to help him navigate his world – and has lost all of his emotional landmarks. His mother is depressed and overworked, his father is a weak and cowardly creature, his new school is packed with racists and bullies, and Alex is suspicious of the changes he sees in his friend. As the divorce process continues, Buddy is placed squarely in the middle, the responsibility for his father’s happiness and his mother’s happiness, those things no longer being one and the same, is placed squarely on his young shoulders. The cruelty of those he trusts is breathtaking. His father wants him to keep his secrets. “You need to promise me you won’t say anything…” His mother wants him to spill those secrets. “Buddy,” his mother says, “you’ve got to tell me the truth, honey. That’s the only way we can help daddy.” Gramma Turner wants reports on his mother. “He knows what will come next, the questions about his mother: how often does she clean? does she help him with his homework? does she drink two or three glasses of wine with dinner? does she ever have men friends over?” Buddy sees all of these as demands that he betray someone he loves. These secrets leave him feeling isolated. “…silence spread out between his mother and him…a thin sheet of glass.” Pretty soon that sheet of glass thickens and elongates to include everyone he is close to. This leaves Simon the opening he needs. Ultimately, like being pulled apart by a medieval torture rack, Buddy breaks under the pressure and the consequences leave no one untouched.

Ghost Horse flows imaginatively – as a child would process events and people from his necessarily limited perspective. Accordingly, the language and metaphors McNeely employs evoke the intimidating world of adults as seen from the child’s level. The plot is deftly constructed even though not all of the threads are tied off by the end of the story. If it seems that the characters of Simon’s family and Gramma Turner come across as slightly stereotypical, this is because the child Buddy sees them as archetypes. The conclusion of Ghost Horse is satisfying but you will be invested enough in Buddy’s world to wish you knew what happened next.

Published in Atticus Review

[Richard Jespers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you recall how the world seemed to you, at times, when you were twelve? Not quite all of its pieces fit together? Mom and Dad speak in a foreign tongue? That’s how the entire novel, Ghost Horse, passes, as twelve-year-old Buddy Turner attempts to unearth this new world complicated by his parents’ divorce. McNeely recreates this vexing scenario so realistically that you feel as if you are Buddy.

At first, McNeely’s novel is frustratingly inscrutable. What is the meaning of this little bit of conversation Buddy overhears between his parents? Why doesn’t his real father, the one Buddy knows before the man goes off to Louisiana to finish med school, return to their home, the one where his Mom lives? The author wishes for the reader to sense the utter confusion that is aroused in a child when his parents inexplicably decide to separate. Who wants “this?” is repeated over and over again, his mother or his father? He says she does; she says he does. Each parent tries to build an alliance with Buddy, one that is exclusive of the other adult. To save himself, not really aware of his motivation, Buddy sets out to make an animated film about a horse with his friend Alex Torres, a boy he’s befriended in his old neighborhood, where he has attended a school called Queen of Peace. Even though his father now pays for him to attend an all-white school, St. Edwards, he continues to see Alex and work on the film. But all sorts of forces pull against him. There’s the horse that is constantly circling in the skies overhead, ready to pounce on Buddy’s enemies, yet is startlingly impotent when it comes to delivering real aid. Both of his grandmothers pull at him, tempting him to do one thing or another that will help him grow up into a fine man. His mother pulls at him. His father pulls at him. His father’s female friend, Mary, urges him to leave his mother and live with them. The boys at his new school attempt to initiate him into their comfortable world of long, gold cars and spacious brick homes. But Buddy is no longer comfortable anywhere, not at his mother’s place, nor at his grandmother’s, where his estranged father stays in the very room in which he spent his boyhood, while his own father lies dying but a few feet away. Buddy Turner is so uncomfortable that he begins to act out in violent, erratic ways that are not like the old Buddy.

McNeely creates one long cloudy, gray day in the Houston, Texas, of 1975—a period of painful transition from old southern city to the vibrant metropolis of today. He must repeat the word “ghost” or its derivatives scores of times. Though the experience is uncomfortable for readers, McNeely wishes for them to undergo a boy's hell of living through his parents’ divorce. And in great measure he succeeds.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghost Horse is about a time when the folks in Houston, Texas were just exploring big changes in expectations and culture and yet it is a place where one could delineate the classes and futures clearly. The Mexicans lived in one area, the whites another, the wealthy even another location and the Negroes had their own place on this earth. There were even more categories such as conservative Christians and trailer trash; people spoke one way at home and the well-educated spoke another way in public. The Priests and teachers were eager to spread the message of anti- change, violence and hate. How is a boy to find himself and figure out who he is and what his true relationships are; Buddy becomes extremely confused trying to make sense of who he is and what he needs to do?

Thomas H. McNeely is a writer and a professor and he grew up in Houston during this time of turmoil. It took him 14 years to write GHOST HORSE. The boy’s confusion comes right off the page and into the mind with the concise puncture of incredible words and feelings exquisitely placed on the page. Racism, sexism, homophobia, fundamentalism, bigotry, economic inequality, hatred and violence coming at Buddy at every moment of this boy’s day haunting him like the GHOST HORSE – where is the escape? Would it be in making a movie about the GHOST HORSE with your Mexican friend?
- See more at: http://patriciaswisdom.com/2014/10/gh...

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghost Horse is told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old boy. As mentioned in its book blurb, it tackles on the delicate issues like class, bullying, abuse and racial tension.

It’s apparent that Buddy is in great pain. His parents are divorcing; it’s too much for him to handle. My heart breaks for him. Ghost Horse is quite hard for me to review; it’s so… poignant. Goodreads member Leila says it best: it’s a gripping read.

Page 58, in particular, was a heart stopper for me. I can’t give away too much, all I know is it’s going to, beyond a shadow of doubt, shock you.

There’s a lot of attentive writing here, it’s almost poetic. It actually took me a while to get through Ghost Horse. It’s deep. It’s though-provoking. It’s to be savoured.

Here are some of the quotes I’ve included. Hopefully, it’ll coax you to give Ghost Horse a read! For family-drama and literary fiction fans!

Favourite quote: There are two kinds of people in Houston, his mother says: those who read the Post and those who read the Chronicle.

Review also seen on:Priscilla and her Books

[SmallPressPicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, one of the most fascinating and moving aspects of the novel is its investigation of the powers—and limitations—of creativity. On the one hand, the Ghost Horse of the novel's title (the subject of an animated movie-in-progress) is a tragic figure: he’s imagined as a rescuer but is never fully realized, much less heroic. Even Buddy, the main character of the novel and the movie's co-creator, sometimes thinks of the Ghost Horse as a “lie,” something “only a child would believe.” On the other hand, the horse is a real and powerful force of Buddy's imaginations. This made me think more generally about the human drive to imagine and create. Sometimes, this drive seems powerless—even irrelevant—in the face of the “real” trials of our lives. Other times, it feels like the one of the few things that can sustain us and lift us, however temporarily, over the perils of the real. This novel brought that feeling home for me, once again.

--Adapted from a fuller review at SmallPressPicks.com

[Water · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is intricate and as delicate and complex as a spider’s web. The layers reveal Buddy's inner struggles, his humanity. Ultimately, the heart of this novel is about discovery, what Buddy Turner comes to understand about love, both its fragility and power. Its dimensions are universal, the lens of the boy brings forth an innocence and puts you on the edge of what transforms him.

As many postings have noted, the language paints a soulful and relentless world – and the culminating lines drive you through the story, in places with moments that are stunningly brutal. Each character is finely rendered as the narrative unfolds, and through the eyes of a boy, we experience what he feels - frame by frame, picture by picture, encounter by encounter.

This novel is a beautiful and complex work: by the end, you will see not just the boy, but the essence of the man.

[Laura Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a well written literary style novel about a family in crisis and the effects of that on the 11 year old protagonist. My ranking has nothing to do with the quality of this book. I simply hated most of the characters and felt sorry for the rest. I simply didn't enjoy reading it

[Beth (fuelled by fiction) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s Houston, Texas, and it’s the 1970s. Buddy Turner is eleven years old and likes to make animated movies with his best friend, Alex Torres. Buddy’s parents don’t live together any more. Two years ago his father moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana to finish med school and serve the Army. But now his dad has moved back to Houston, and he still doesn’t live with them. He is Buddy’s dad, but he’s not the same. Sometimes when Buddy looks at him, he sees his father. But other times, he see someone else.

Buddy’s mom works hard to provide for him. She provides for her mother, Grandma Liddy, too. But his dad’s mother, Grandma Turner, doesn’t like his mother. She’s always saying things about her, about how he should come and live with his Grandma instead. His dad wants Buddy to live with him and the woman. He can't tell his mother, though.

Grandma Turner decided he should go to St. Edward’s school instead of Queen of Peace. So, he does. St. Edward’s is an all white Catholic school. Alex was Buddy’s best friend, and he did like making the movies, but now they seem childish. They’re not like real life. Now he doesn’t want his classmates to know that he’s friends with a Mexican. Buddy also doesn’t want them to know that his father doesn’t live with him.

Ghost Horse tells a story that will stay with you. A story of racism, and class tension. A story of broken families and lost innocence. McNeely takes you back in time to when you were eleven. As you read, you see everything as Buddy sees it, and understand it (or don’t understand it) as Buddy does. You see the edges of dark, adult truths through the unknowing, innocent eyes of a child. Over time, however, Buddy starts to pick things up. Not everything, but enough to know when something’s wrong.

You’re immediately drawn in to the story as you try to decipher the complexities of Buddy’s family through his naiveté. You’re alongside Buddy as he tries to make sense of his volatile family situation, but as a child, there’s only so much he can grasp; he knows both more and less than adults give him credit for. You feel his angst, his unease, through his half-formed opinions and almost-understandings.

McNeely uses the idea of film as a trope, weaving it throughout the story. Buddy sees life as a movie: there’s the “childish” and the “fake” versus the “adult” and the “real”:
“He knows that his father is lying. But it is like an alphabet with letters missing, a building that bursts into impossible shapes. He watches his father speak as if he is watching a bad lip sync. He is in a no place, a place where there is no horse; he is in the real movie, he thinks.”
Soon, however, Buddy realizes that such distinctions are arbitrary, and that even the adult world isn’t “real.” It’s his, what can only be described as “frenemy,” Simon, who introduces him to such a paradox:
“This is the real secret Simon taught him: that school is real, and a joke; that only losers don’t follow the rules, and only losers believe in them.”

As Buddy tries to stay true to both his parents, he begins to lose himself. With such contradictory role models, it's hard to know who to become. Ghost Horse is a coming of age story in the sense that Buddy loses his innocence. However, you don’t see him fully grow up. You do, however, get a devastating picture of the effect that racism, classicism, and a broken family can have on a child.

The characters are complex and well drawn. They remain mysterious to us as we can only see them as Buddy sees them, and thus their complexities are often overlooked. They, however, remain intriguing and compelling. The plot is similar in that way. While Buddy's view of what's going on is simplified, it is, at the same time, also magnified. The edges of the events themselves are blurred, but to Buddy, they are everything.

Buddy's trajectory is almost immediately uncomfortable for the reader, but you can't look away. You need to follow Buddy through the ups and downs, through his keenly observed remarks and insights. As his loyalties are pulled and pushed between his parents, you just want to hug him and tell him everything will be okay. But, you don't know if that's true. You know there is no easy answer, no quick fix.

A dark, beautiful, heartbreaking story, I found myself wanting to both quote everything and turn away in unease. McNeely weaves a tale you won’t soon forget.

[Leila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghost Horse by Thomas McNeely is a powerful debut novel; it is both a deeply moving coming-of-age story and an intense psychological portrait of a family in crisis. McNeely weaves an intricate web of a plot against the backdrop of the racial and class tensions of Houston of the 1970s. The tale of 11-year-old Buddy over one unsettling year of his adolescence makes for a compelling and worthwhile read.

This novel is quite beautifully written. McNeely’s dialogue is sharp and believable, and he skillfully creates a suspenseful, dark atmosphere that fits the intensity of the story perfectly. The characters are richly drawn; Buddy’s two grandmothers, each controlling and difficult in her own way, his hardworking and hopeful mother, his volatile father swinging wildly from one extreme to another, the cold-eyed bully at Buddy’s new school—they all come startlingly, fully to life.

Importantly, McNeely gets Buddy’s adolescent voice exactly right. Buddy is on the cusp of change, sitting at that precarious transition between childhood and adulthood; I’ve read precious few novels that capture that charged passage so exactly. As the adults all around Buddy make poor decisions, tell lies, and prove themselves to be unreliable, Buddy must learn to make his own choices and guide himself through the rough shoals ahead.

McNeely touches on many themes in Ghost Horse—race, class, sexuality, lost friendship, bullying, and abuse, to name a few, and I could hold forth about how McNeely sheds light on all of these. But one issue that struck me in particular as I read Ghost Horse was McNeely’s treatment of divorce and its tumultuous affect on children. Divorce felt like a great and terrible scourge to those of us who grew up in the 1970s; at least half of the kids I knew suffered through the break-up of their parents, and the rest of us feared it. McNeely demonstrates how Buddy tries to make sense of his parents’ arguments and actions, but of course he can’t fully understand the complexity of their emotions. He’s trapped in a chaotic situation that is none of his own making, forced to deal with issues that children should never have to consider. As a reader, I wanted leap into this story and hug this boy, and give him back a carefree childhood with no bigger concern than creating an animated movie with his best friend.

And the “Ghost Horse” itself—what a haunting image. The Ghost Horse, from the Super 8 movie that Buddy and his Latino friend Alex create, appears like a mythological creature . . . symbolizing, perhaps, escape, freedom, and strength. The Ghost Horse represents a world in which things are still black and white, while Buddy’s world has turned to confusing and constantly shifting shades of grey. If only the Ghost Horse could fly in and save Buddy; but Buddy, must, of course, find a way to save himself.

I could go on, but this is becoming a lengthy review, indeed. Let me sum up by saying that Ghost Horse is a gripping read—I turned the pages feverishly, desperate to know what would happen and if Buddy would be okay. I highly recommend this novel for readers who love literary fiction and complex family stories.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel from Gival Press and TLC Book Tours.

[Warwick Wadlington · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel left me in harrowed astonishment and admiration. It's one of those books that you'll always remember, becoming part of your imagination and understanding of the world.
Congratulations to McNeely for the power of "Ghost Horse" and for his fidelity to finding the right way to tell this story, which allowed me to continue reading, to continue being harrowed by the tortured fidelity compelling the novel's people. I'd advise a reader to be patient with the beginning of the novel as the stresses on eleven year old Buddy Turner mount. Trust the writer's narrative mastery and read on, as Buddy goes on, making a reality-managing movie about his magical horse with his friend Alex while the Turner family and its loyalties fitfully dissolve.
I came to "Ghost Horse" after reading Andrew Roberts' new biography of Napoleon, a fine attempt to wrench truth out of acres of reality-managing legends and lies about the man, including his own. I was surprised and pleased at the continuity with McNeely's fiction. Napoleon was a Corsican outsider and dreamy school-boy poet who, like Buddy, wanted to astonish the world one way or another, and knew it. Napoleon took Machiavellian tactics learned from family, friends, and reading and extended them from the politics of everyday life to command the ever-changing French Revolution, with its volatile mixture of alliances and enmities, loyalties and betrayals. He was finally betrayed by others and his own errors, some unlike him, some just like him.
On the smaller scale of Buddy's world, he tries to do something similar with his family's domestic revolution at a time of deep-sunk bigotry resisting rapid social change and progress. What can be believed in becomes for him, and no less for us, a question of who can be trusted, as others try to recruit him to their own reality-movies. The reality-movies underlying the schoolyard politics that challenge Buddy are a compound of all the boys' own family politics and society's. His schoolmate Simon Quine, with his wonderful name and dismaying family, is my favorite character; Napoleon was a kind of combination of Simon and Buddy. The Quine family is a contribution to literature along with Buddy. But all of the characters work, the whole unforgettable lot of them that McNeely organizes toward the stunning ending, when Buddy wonders "how to begin." I advise you to begin reading this dynamite novel.
I loved McNeely's humor, too, dark as 95% cacao chocolate but better tasting.

[Marian Szczepanski · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s no easy thing to write a coming-of-age novel for adult readers from the perspective of a child. The prose must be sharply observed, capturing the action at hand and its emotional content, yet necessarily incomplete, given a child’s limited understanding of adult behavior, particularly when those adults behave in concertedly duplicitous fashion. Such is the milieu of Thomas McNeely’s remarkable debut and Gival Press Novel Award winning Ghost Horse. With uncanny precision, McNeely inhabits the mind, body, and soul of Buddy Turner, an 11-year-old Houston boy, caught in an impending divorce drama between an absentee, unfaithful father who’s returned to town, vowing to mend his ways, and an exhausted, wounded mother reluctant to believe her estranged husband’s promises. Not only must Buddy find his way in a feuding family embedded with secrets, he also must navigate the treacherous shoals of burgeoning adolescence with its constantly shifting alliances and unforeseen betrayals. Buddy’s father completes his medical training and returns to Houston able to pay for a more prestigious school, a move viewed by his father and paternal grandmother as essential to Buddy’s future. However the move subverts Buddy’s longstanding friendship with Alex Torres, an artistically gifted boy of Hispanic heritage from a humble, working-class neighborhood, with whom Buddy spends after-school hours working to make a Super-8 animated movie. Ghost Horse, the movie’s supernatural hero, becomes a mythic force in Buddy’s life, a powerful guardian spirit to whom he prays for guidance as his relationships with family and friends grow increasingly toxic. He watches the often contradictory behavior of his parents and grandmothers “carefully, from far away, trying to see who they really are,” longing to see his “real” father, not the untrustworthy man masked with “another face” whose claims he, like his mother, distrusts. Equally unsettling are the insidious changes he senses within himself. Reduced by his own lies and half-truths into a self-described “monster, a madman,” he acts out—a disturbing chain of events that his family members, too wrapped up in their own issues, fail to register as desperate cries for help. Both heartbreaking and compelling, this beautifully written novel renders the disintegration of a family through the eyes of a sensitive child determined to expose longstanding truths that threaten, not just the survival of his parents’ marriage, but also his own.

[Tia Bach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddy is a boy torn between two parents and all their issues. His escape is focusing on a movie project with one of his friends. But creative endeavors can't hold back the troubles in his family and society in general.

So much is right about this novel. For instance, Buddy is an intricate character who will find his way into the reader's heart. He is struggling, and his pain jumps off the pages. Then, there are his interactions with kids his own age, which showcases both society at the time and general coming-of-age woes. All of this is told in heartbreaking detail. It's dark in a way that rings true and pulls the reader in.

But I also must say, I found myself struggling to read it. Not just because of the raw honesty, but the author's style in presenting it. There's not enough dialogue and too many rushed scenes (and overheard conversations) which took away from some of the emotional punch, although there's still plenty.

To be fair, it's not meant to be an easy read. While I felt connected to Buddy and his struggles, I felt somehow removed from both of his parents and their real stories. I especially wanted more background and character transparency for the involved grandparents.

Still, I would recommend to readers who love literary fiction and all that entails--dark, intense story; heartbreaking revelations; emotional connection to struggling characters; and thought-provoking, underlying themes and symbolism. It's the kind of a book an English class or scholarly book club would have a field day with.

Note: I love literary fiction, but it relies heavily on connection. For some reason, I was having a hard time staying connected to the story. Connection is highly subjective.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Note: I received a complimentary copy for review purposes. A positive review was not requested or guaranteed; the opinions expressed are my own.

[Kari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ghost Horse is going to be a hard book for me to review. The story of his parents relationship is told through the eyes of an 11 YO boy. I wanted to like this book because it seemed like one I would enjoy. But, after I finishing it, I can't say that I really liked the book. I'm not saying it's badly written. I know that there will be a lot of people who will enjoy this style of writing. It just didn't work for me.

Having everything told through Buddy's point of view didn't work for me. I felt like I was muddling my way through most of the book. At times, I really had no idea what was going on. The ending left me confused and felt unfinished. I'm still not too clear on what Buddy's father or mother did that was so wrong. Maybe having some of the grown-up's point of view would have helped round out the story better. I'm not sure what the significance of setting the book in 1975 as I'm not really familiar with what was going on in the country at the time. I was only 4 in 1975, so I don't remember much. I do think that some of the racial and religious tensions that we see in the story are still relevant to the present.

This is one of those book that I would recommend reading and seeing for yourself if you like it. It just wasn't my style.

[Leanora · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I could give this book 3.5 stars, I would! Review to come on the blog next week-

Ghost Horse by Thomas H. McNeely is a beast of a book; full of self-discovery, harsh realities and a sense of hope, this novel is worth the read.

Ghost HorseConsidering the main character, Buddy, is a young man this book seems like it would have a place on the shelves of high school libraries, recommended by the English teachers, and for any adolescent male struggling to make sense of the world. Buddy is trapped between what he wants to believe vs. what reality is, making decisions for himself and pleasing his family: a tough spot for him to be in as it is. Add to that a tough political scene in Texas, a best friend who is Latino and discovering secrets about your father and you’ve got a lot for Buddy to work through. While the subject matter was not my favorite (this book is tough to read at times, just because you can feel the conflict – very well written) I give this a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[Karen O'Connell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghost Horse is a powerful book that tells the story of Buddy Turner, a boy caught in the drama of his family and the social upheaval of Texas in the seventies. The reader is carried along in Buddy’s point of view as he tries to make sense of what is happening between his parents and what is the “real story.” His confusion plays out on the page, in taut scenes filled with his tension of not wanting to hurt his parents or his friends. Yet he is bewildered by what is really happening, of what is really expected of him, of who and what to believe. The scenes are distilled down to disturbing truths of being a boy and of being a parent. Ghost Horse is a book that was a difficult emotional story, but one that will long resonate.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclosure: I am friends with the author.

This is a harsh and beautiful book. I was both fascinated and repelled by this story of boys being twisted by the manipulations, blindness, and selfishness of the adults that are supposed to nurture and project them. The two main child characters, Buddy and Simon, try to find ways to strike back at the world and feel some control in the only way they can, with devastating results. This will stick with me for a long time.

4.5 stars

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading Ghost Horse; I loved this novel. I knew Buddy would have to do something, and I didn't know what it would be. I had to find out. I loved McNeely's handling of the strange and frightening world of the anguished child, the longing for sense and order, and the tenuous lines between mental health and madness that we all experience, but that adolescence heightens. Buddy Turner is a character I will not forget.

[Jhanno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written with such sensitivity and depth of emotion, it leaves you feeling raw inside. With his starkly beautiful prose, McNeely succeeds in exposing all the magic and terror of growing up. Ghost Horse brings it all to the surface: the dreams of young boys, broken families, friendships built on secrets and unpredictable shifts of power, the emerging awareness of social injustice and betrayal. It makes you wonder how any of us survived childhood.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very well done, though a bit shattering in the end... kind of like if Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson teamed up to write a coming-of-age novel set in 1970 Houston. Beautiful writing, at the same time bleak, and very textural-I'm still mulling it over in my mind. Absolutely a terrific debut novel.

[Lynne Reeves Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mesmerizing novel about family alliances and the pain parents cause when they put children in the middle of their own heartache.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghost Horse is a haunting novel which builds with complexity, urgency, and despair. The novel will stay with you long after you've put it down.

[Jesse Ehrlich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Ghost Horse by Thomas McNeely. As a child of divorce in the late 60s, I was struck by the way Mr. McNeely's writing captures the conflicting emotions and layers of discord that I still remember so vividly. The scenes with Buddy, the protagonist, and his classmates are masterful. It's rare to glimpse an accurate portrayal into the lives of children but Buddy's voice and thoughts were so well conveyed to the reader. This book left a strong impression - highly recommended!

[Alexis Clements · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other reviewers have covered many other aspects of the book well, so I'll simply say, that while reading this book I couldn't help but think of adolescent logic - of the heightened senses and states of reality that you feel at that age, the states of consciousness and being that make it seem as if you will simply burst into flame, as if a set of drawings could kill a person, as if all the world can see into your quite vulnerable soul. Pieces of that stick around past adolescence for many. I think one of the most affecting aspects of this book is that rendering of the inner life of a young person who carries the weight of his real and imagined world upon his shoulders.

[Morgan Prior · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghost Horse has some of the most human, morally“gray” characters I have ever read. Most of them are hard to like at some point or another, but at the same time, it’s hard not to sympathize with them. I found this book both poignant and difficult to put down, and I think it deserves to be so much more popular than it is.

[Jay Geigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

T-E-N-S-I-O-N.

A tough read only that it's emotionally brutal, unflinching, and gathers intensity as it goes along. Well done.

[David Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written book. Such a great, insightful clearly rendered reminiscence of a time that seems so long ago. Boyhood. Our 12 year old protagonist is torn between his two warring parents, and between his Mexican, and white friends. A must read.