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Falling from Horses: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
In 1938, 19-year-old cowboy Bud Frazer sets his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the movies. Fantasizing about rubbing shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his youth, he leaves his home in Echol Creek, Oregon, and heads for Hollywood. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets a young woman who also harbors dreams of making it in the movies, though not as a starlet but as a writer, a real writer. Lily Shaw is bold and outspoken and confident in ways completely out of proportion with her small frame and bookish looks. The two proceed to strike up an unlikely kinship that will carry them through their tumultuous days in Hollywood -- and, as it happens, for the rest of their lives. Acutely observed and impeccably authentic, FALLING FROM HORSES charts what turns out to be a glittering year in the movie business, seen through the wide eyes and lofty dreams of two people trying to make their mark on the world, or at least to make their way in it. As she did so memorably in her previous novel, the bestselling THE HEARTS OF HORSES, Molly Gloss weaves a remarkable tale of humans and horses, hope and heartbreak. Molly Gloss is also the author of The Jump-Off Creek, a winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award, The Dazzle of Day, a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the PEN Center West Fiction Prize, and Wild Life, winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award.
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“Narrator David Aaron Baker isperfect as Bud Frazer…Baker’s voice holds justenough grit to portray the tough young man who endures fall after fall from horsesrunning at full speed as well as projecting an endearing vulnerability thatmakes the listener engage with the character. Baker is exceptionally convincingwith the voices of the women in Bud’s life—from his screenwriter friend, Lily,to his incredibly strong mother. Baker has the gift of disappearing from thenarration as he reads the dialogue and vivid descriptions of injuries anddeaths, the fascinating history of how the old Hollywood Western movies weremade, and the personal tragedies that led Bud to choose this fascinating and painfulcareer. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
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“I read Falling from Horses in two gulps. The writing is gorgeous, the setting so beautifully realized [in] both time and place, the narrative voice unforgettable, and all the characters so real and compelling. Tremendous, page-turning….I could not have loved it more.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club -
“The story of a boy growing up into a man by way of ambition, adventure, catastrophe, love, and grief. A beautiful, moving novel, cut from the American heartwood.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning author -
“Gloss strips away any romantic notions of ranching life or moviemaking with detailed descriptions of long days of work and the tricks used on horses in the cowboy flicks. Bud is a marvelous narrator—direct, self-effacing, and descriptive, looking back with some bemusement at the brashness of his nineteen-year-old self. The emotions stirred by his tale are as honest as a hard day’s work during a roundup. The novel is sturdy in its simplicity, a send-up of the cowboy myth that replaces it with something more valuable—a cowboy with heart.”
— Booklist -
“Gloss presents moviemaking as anything but glamorous in this fictional memoir..Bud’s experiences on movie sets—the novel is brimming with instances of brutality to horses and their riders—made him realize Hollywood was not for him, and he moved on. Don’t expect a neatly structured plot, but the acute sense of time and place, coupled with a cast of characters drawn with unsentimental but abiding affection, makes for a hypnotic read.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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About Molly Gloss
Molly Gloss is the bestselling author The Hearts of Horses, The Jump-Off Creek, winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award, The Dazzle of Day, winner of the PEN Center West Fiction Prize, and Wild Life, winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award.
About David Aaron Baker
David Aaron Baker is a voice and film actor. He is an award-winning narrator of dozens of audiobooks, including the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz, Paradise Dogs by Man Martin, and The Bartender’s Tale by Ivan Doig. He has earned several AudioFile Earphones Awards and been a three-time finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration.