BOOKS | Riding Barranca
Trafalgar Square Books, 2013
Photographs by Donna DeMari & Mason Rose
Foreword by Thomas Moore
Order copies wherever fine books are sold.
A young friend reading on her horse
Riding Barranca
Finding Freedom and Forgiveness on the Midlife Trail
“The counterpoint of horses and family makes this book unusally satisfying. This intrigue, the unanswered questions, the mysterious juxtapositions, are what make this book, to me, a work of art.”
—Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and Soul Therapy
Riding with Laura is pure pleasure. In a fleeting one-year journal, skilled horsewoman, Laura Chester, brings us into her world, where we deeply connect with the earth and its seasons, with beauty and sometimes danger.
The borderland of Arizona and the Berkshires of Massachusetts are the contrasting settings where we get to know Barranca, learning what the love between horse and rider creates: a realm unto itself. Whether climbing the mountains of Sedona or picking ripe apples from the saddle, Chester's lucid prose always takes us with her.
An on-going struggle with a difficult mother is woven throughout this narrative. What better way to process the past than by riding out on horseback, where memories can be released and the forgiving animal beneath you becomes the greatest solace.
This is a book full of emotion and visceral movement, in which forested hills and wide open grasslands become the trail of our newfound experience, the horse an intimate companion, mediator between soul and nature, helping us connect to our truer, more elemental selves.
“... Chester saddles up for a memoir related to her love of horses ... [S]he consistently manages to pull in the reins on ‘the beauty and silence of nature’ that lift her and other midlife riders.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“[A] journey — both geographical and metaphorical — surveyed through the high-up lens of a wise woman on horseback; one whose greatest solace and joy stem from her daily jaunts through known and unknown territory.”
—Nichole Dupont, ruralintelligence.com
“From the start Chester is very good at completely drawing the reader into her world .... [T]hese are ... explorations of both the external environment ... and an internal environment she becomes more in touch with while on horseback.”
—Goodhorsekeeping.com
“[T]he author, struggling with her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease, spent a year on horseback, experiencing the healing beauty and silence of nature, and gaining ‘some understanding for the complexity of family.’”
—Lone Star Horse Report
“Leaves the reader rooting for the author while reflecting on his/her own life.”
—Horse & Style Magazine
