On the day before the release of Dream of the Dance by Sian Shipley (on Amazon anyway), which I am so looking forward to reading, I thought I’d share my thoughts on my other all time favourite book, The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans.

*if you have never read this book before and intend to – spoilers!*

I initially read this around the age of 15/16 so it is safe to say my views have changed from when I first read it to now at the age of 44.

Brief synopsis:

Young girl, Grace and horse, Pilgrim get involved in a tragic accident with a truck while out riding. Grace ends up with an amputated leg and Pilgrim ends up traumatised and impossible to manage.

Grace’s mother, Annie is a very determined magazine editor who worries that Grace has become dangerously withdrawn after the accident and fixates upon sorting out Pilgrim as the answer. In her mission she locates a ‘horse whisperer’ , Tom Booker who initially refuses to help so she throws herself on his mercy by driving herself, Grace and Pilgrim all the way from New York State to Montana where he is based.

Under the big skies of Montana, Annie, Grace and Pilgrim begin to flourish and heal. 

Book: 

Annie and Tom begin an affair. Annie wants to leave her husband and stay with Tom, however Tom does not want this, he knows that Annie belongs in the city and he belongs at his ranch and he has been hurt before. He has an ex wife who was from Chicago who couldn’t cope with being in such a remote place.  He clearly doesn’t want to be in that sort of relationship again and he also doesn’t want to see Grace get hurt when she has been through so much already.

Grace finds out about her mother and Tom’s affair during a barn dance held to celebrate her successful ride on Pilgrim. In her rage, she takes Pilgrim out on a mad ride and gets mixed up with a herd of mustangs. She gets thrown and Pilgrim ends up fighting with a mustang stallion. Tom arrives and extricates Pilgrim from the fight, however he then moves towards the mustang stallion and appears to ‘offer himself’ when the stallion rears up in front of him, kicking him in the head and killing him. The book strongly implies that this was suicide as Grace’s POV says that he could easily have moved out of the way as she had seen him do the same when working with Pilgrim many times.

Film:

Stays fairly faithful to the book for the first half. Once in Montana, there is a good bit of frisson between Annie and Tom and they do kiss during a cattle drive and then have a very suggestive slow dance at a barn dance, right in front of Annie’s husband (really?). Robert then has a very frank talk with Annie about her getting her head straight before coming home- saying that she has to decide what she wants. Annie then dithers for a bit before then driving off for home while Tom watches her depart.

Opinion:

As a teenager, when I first watched the film, I was outraged that they changed the ending as I really love the book.  As an adult though, I look at it a bit more objectively. For me, nowadays the film seems like a more sensible ending, in keeping with the characters involved. Tom seems like a sensible and well adjusted guy who I don’t think would suddenly take the opportunity to die over a love affair. Annie, I could believe more, she’s a bit more self-centred and driven.

I largely think that Nicholas Evans’ original storyline was a plot device: both Grace and Pilgrim were traumatised, and then when they were starting to heal they each had to deal with a final trauma to finally fully recover. Grace and Pilgrim’s recoveries had to mirror each other’s.