Paras has second (and third) thoughts about her unplanned escape, which was spurred by curiosity rather than a yearning for freedom. Obviously, she had been taken care of her entire life and had no idea how the world worked.' The savvy pooch is amazed by the horse's naivety: Paras knows nothing about the power of money, or even what she's chasing when she races. Their conversation is equal parts charming and hilarious. Frida, on her own since the death of her beloved owner, a street busker, knows plenty about living in the rough, and about avoiding capture as a stray. She ends up in Paris, where Frida, an elegant, sophisticated street dog, attracted by the money she smells in the purse, becomes Paras' protector. With her trainer's purse - stuffed with her latest winnings - clenched between her teeth like a bit, Paras encounters a whole new world. Smiley's sensitive racehorse, called Paras for short, is a fleet filly who, propelled by curiosity and the lure of freedom and adventure, wanders from the track one November night when her trainer accidentally leaves her stall door ajar. But of course the Russian moniker is also Smiley's heads-up that this is a book about a sort of reformation, or restructuring.

Perestroika is the thoroughbred's official name, born of Moscow Ballet. this delightful, heartwarming tale about creatures living in the rough in Paris's Champs de Mars is something new for Smiley, and it's an appealing balm for harsh times.

They also overcome their differences and prejudices to band together to lend a paw, claw, wing, or hoof to each other and, eventually, a lonely, orphaned 8-year-old boy. The animals - her titular racehorse, who converses with an elegant shorthaired German pointer, a haughty raven, a squabbling pair of mallards, and a rat pining for a mate - share their hardships, fears, needs, and dreams. Nor is this the first time that the author, best known for A Thousand Acres, her Pulitzer Prize-winning homage to King Lear, has gone light: Moo and Ten Days in the Hills are both satires.īut this delightful, heartwarming tale about creatures living in the rough in Paris's Champs de Mars is something new for Smiley, and it's an appealing balm for harsh times. The title character of Jane Smiley's new novel, Perestroika in Paris - her first since she completed her massive The Last Hundred Years trilogy in 2015 - is a talking horse! Of course, horses have trotted through the pages of plenty of Smiley's books, including Horse Heaven and most of her Young Adult novels. It's such a joy when an author whose work you've been reading for decades surprises you with something unexpected.

Horse heaven by jane smiley