From an award-winning and talented young novelist comes one of the most exciting fiction debuts in years: a breathtaking and beautiful novel set on a horse ranch in small-town Colorado.
When her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy, Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles — a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch. As the hottest summer in fifteen years unfolds and bills pile up, Alice is torn between dreams of escaping the loneliness of her duty-filled life and a longing to help her father mend their family and the ranch.
To make ends meet, the Winstons board the pampered horses of rich neighbors, and for the first time Alice confronts the power and security that class and wealth provide. As her family and their well-being become intertwined with the lives of their clients, Alice is drawn into an adult world of secrets and hard truths, and soon discovers that people — including herself — can be cruel, can lie and cheat, and every once in a while, can do something heartbreaking and selfless. Ultimately, Alice and her family must weather a devastating betrayal and a shocking, violent series of events that will test their love and prove the power of forgiveness.
A wise and astonishing novel about the different guises of love and the often steep tolls on the road to adulthood, The God of Animals is a haunting, unforgettable debut.
From Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
What young girl hasn't dreamed of owning a horse and bringing home a blue ribbon? In Kyle's achingly compelling first novel, this childhood fantasy is turned on its ear.
Eleven-year-old Alice Winston lives on a run-down horse farm in Desert Valley, Colorado, with a bedridden mother and a frustrated father, who stubbornly believes he can bring the farm back to its former glory. His ambition rests on Sheila Altman, a wealthy girl with scant riding ability whose mother forks over large sums for a horse and lessons to indulge her daughter's whim. When Alice is invited to participate in her father's scheme to win more money from the Altmans, the story moves inevitably toward tragedy.
A gifted and evocative writer, Kyle creates a rich setting in which even the barns and fences seem to speak of loss and pain; the saddles and spurs intended to inspire confidence seem mere contrivances. The harsh methods employed by Alice's father to break unruly horses mirror Alice's own family life, and the constraints that have damaged each member of her family. A novel that will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page, The God of Animals reminds us that the lessons we learn in childhood will affect us for the rest of our lives. (Summer 2007 Selection)
Carolyn See
Some people seem fated to live in untenable situations. In this beautiful first novel, Alice Winston, 12 years old, has grown up in one. She lives in a town in the Western American desert, which -- although it can be exquisite -- doesn't always take kindly to the existence of humans. Her mother has been a victim of something like postpartum depression for as long as Alice can remember, and stays in a back bedroom for weeks on end. Her father, Joe, whom some would call a dreamer, maintains a stable for show horses, except that not many customers want to share in the show horse dream. Joe dwells in an imagined world where he gets to do exactly what he wants to do: purchase horses, breed them, break them, train them, then wait for a steady stream of wealthy little girls to ride them in shows. It should make him rich. It worked, more or less, for his father and grandfather.
— The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Horses and lost love propel this confident debut novel about Alice Winston, a 12-year-old loner with family troubles in Desert Valley, Colo. Her mother hasn't left her bed since Alice was a baby; her father struggles to keep their horse ranch solvent; and her beautiful older sister, Nona, has eloped with a rodeo cowboy. Alice resists befriending the rich girl who takes riding lessons from her father, becomes obsessed with a classmate who drowns in a nearby canal and entangles herself with adults whose motives are suspect. Kyle imbues her protagonist with a genuine adolescent voice, but for all its fluidity, her prose lacks punch, and too often, somber descriptions of Colorado's weather and landscape are called upon to underscore themes of human isolation, jealousy and pain ("Tomorrow, the sun would rise and deaden the land beneath its indifference"). The coupling of female adolescence with the stark West produces its share of harsh truths, though Kyle overstates the moral: love hurts, it's a dangerous world and the truth is hard to swallow. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Kyle's novel begins as adolescent narrator Alice Winston recounts the almost simultaneous departure of her sister, Nona, who elopes with a rodeo cowboy, and the drowning of Polly Cain, one of Alice's classmates. These events loom like specters over the rest of the novel, which brims with a confidence and assuredness atypical of a debut. In light of Nona's exodus, Alice becomes her father's primary assistant in tending the family's barn and her bedridden mother's intermediary to the outside world. Alice's penchant for prevarication-she makes a pretense of having been Polly Cain's best friend-helps her repel this harsh reality. In Alice, Kyle has created an adolescent voice that is charming and authentic but that also has its irksome tics: surprising events always inspire such hyperbolic responses as "the air around me sucked to the rims of the earth" and "Everything was coming undone the entire world breaking into pieces beneath me." In the long run, though, this is a carp, as the voice exerts an irresistible pull. The prospect of other people leaving-Alice's father with a woman he trains-and the revelation of characters' secrets keep the reader glued to the story. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/06.]-David Doerrer, Library Journal Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Kyle's first novel, about a girl growing up on a ranch, will strike familiar chords in anyone who had a lonely, troubled adolescence. She captures the fascinating world of show horses better than Jane Smiley in Horse Heaven, and her portrait of the family sinking quickly into poverty is haunting. Alice's mother hasn't left her room since her younger daughter was born, but only gradually do aspects of her mother's depression unfold. And it would seem depression has the potential to engulf Alice and older sister Nona as well. This story is extremely realistic, though the author pushes the limits when Alice befriends a teacher, calling him every night, lying to him about her family, friends, and life. Similarly stretching credibility is that, given expensive clothing, a loner could suddenly become accepted by the cheerleader crowd. Do not expect to be uplifted here. Still, the narrative sucks you in, and Lillian Rabe is a wonderful reader, capturing Alice's voice without the slightest strain. Recommended for larger collections and possibly for YA collections as well.
—Rochelle Ratner
Kirkus Reviews
Growing pains and the loss of innocence on a desert ranch. Kyle's debut tracks the complicated, often punitive business of love from the preternaturally mature perspective of 12-year-old Alice Winston, whose father, Jody, knows more about horses than he does about running a successful business. After Alice's older sister Nona-a brilliant rider and useful advertisement for the ranch-runs off to marry a cowboy, Jody is reduced to stabling boarders (the fine horses of bored, rich women) and trying to teach untalented but wealthy Sheila Altman to win at horse shows. Alice's mother Marian is a bed-ridden depressive; Alice herself is preoccupied by the drowning of her schoolmate Polly Cain, who was in the habit of making phone calls to her English teacher, Mr. Delmar. Alice, lonely as well as sensitive to her father's financial problems and her mother's emotional ones, starts to make secret calls to Delmar herself. Kyle delivers the story in graceful, translucent prose, while the mood of the book is overwhelmingly bleak and steadily focused on the gathering storm. Fearful expectations are eventually realized as a sequence of disasters unfolds, starting with a horrific riding accident that leaves Jody's possible lover Patty Jo badly damaged. Next, Delmar leaves and Alice, in distress, reveals to Sheila her father's infidelities. Patty Jo's accident precipitates the ranch's ruin and a family argument brings about further cruelty, this time leading to the agonizing destruction of a horse. Although an unlikely gift leaves Alice with enough money to go to college, and Kyle wraps up by offering some perspective, it's not exactly a happy ending. A talented writer's lyrical but oppressive first work.
