Book cover of Call It Horses

Book description

Winner of the 2019 Dzanc Prize for Fiction

Set in small-town West Virginia in the twilight of the eighties, Call It Horses tells the story of three women-niece, aunt, and stowaway-and an improbable road trip.

Frankie is an orphan (or a reluctant wife). Mave is an autodidact (or the town…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Call It Horses as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I loved reading this novel first and foremost for its exquisite craftswomanship; van Eerden just writes beautiful sentences. Her descriptions are palpable, delivering the reader to a hollow and its people—all characters who remain intricately bound to their homeplaces no matter how far away they travel. Like my own novel, this story revolves around women and also includes an LGBTQ character. And themes of grieving and motherhood, love and loss, and compromise, are naturally woven into the fabric of the story. 

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Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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