The Year of the Horses

By: Courtney Maum

Narrated by: Courtney Maum

And there it was: the peat smell of an ending summer, oiled leather, hay wet with rain. The horse was as black as the sharp keys on a piano with magnificent brown eyes. My heart sang out to this great beast, and he answered with a toot through his gigantic nostrils. I was dressed. The horse was tacked. It was time to go.

Courtney Maum is thirty-seven years old when she finds herself in an indoor arena in Connecticut, moments away from stepping back into the saddle. For her, this is not just a riding lesson, but a last-ditch attempt to pull herself back from the brink even though riding is a relic from the past she walked away from. She hasn’t been on or near a horse in over thirty years.

Although Maum does know what depression looks like, she finds herself refusing to admit, at this point in her life, that it could look like her: a woman with a mortgage, a husband, a healthy child, and a published novel. That she feels sadness is undeniable, but she feels no right to claim it. And when both therapy and medication fail, Courtney returns to her childhood passion of horseback riding as a way to recover the joy and fearlessness she once had access to as a young girl. As she finds her way, once again, through the world of horseback riding—and how she fits within it—Courtney becomes reacquainted with herself not only as a rider but as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a writer, and a woman. Alternating timelines and braided with historical portraits of women and horses alongside history’s attempts to tame both parties, this courageous, timely memoir is a love letter to the power of animals—and humans—to heal the mind and the heart.

©2022 Courtney Maum (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Horses & healing

It was good to hear the author read her own memoir. The themes of overcoming depression and anxiety through connections with horses & horse lovers made a good story. The author appeared transparent in the description of her struggles to face her fears and imperfections. It is a story that should bring hope to go to read it.

Wanted to like it

I wanted to like this book. I found the author’s narration had the bored and throw-away tone of the affluent. Could not relate to her upbringing and it almost lacked detail to understand why she struggled with symptoms of trauma and neglect. She obviously struggled/struggles with mental health and I’m sure horses are very healing to work with — but Polo… and learning Spanish… to heal… she seems like someone who is stuck between two worlds and feels the need to prove something. Her political meanderings don’t match up with her desire to play a rich person’s sport. It feels as though she both rests on her family’s affluence and is ashamed of it at the same time. It’s not a relatable story. This story feels disingenuous somehow. That said, I did finish it because I kept hoping it was going to have some redeeming or grounding quality to it. It just doesn’t. It falls flat. I literally had to stop listening for days at a time because her waspy boredom just oozes out and drones on like she’s complaining about her charmed life. It felt like she was building a story around horses so that she wouldn’t have to go into detail about her true experiences. Also, listening to someone complain about not being able to put on weight or losing weight after a summer in Spain or being lavished with gifts as a child or having a toddler while not addressing what the abandonment and emotional neglect of her parents actually felt like and looked like makes it hard to follow and makes it seem like she’s just complaining. I feel like there’s more there or should be to make it make sense.

Heart felt story about how horses can help heal us

One woman’s story of the ups and downs of the seasons of our lives and how horses can help us heal. Very touching. Several moments of poignant truth-fullness to consider.

Masterpiece

I loved every second of listening to this book. The authors voice is beautiful, soothing and has a great cadence in her storytelling. The subject matter was relatable and brought me to tears. I very much related to the challenges of being a mother, finding a passion or reigniting a passion from my youth, depression, loss, and learning some little nuances of healing without necessarily resorting to medications. Even if you’re not a horseback rider, you will appreciate this wonderful book. I recommended it to several friends all of them are simultaneously enjoying it. Great work Courtney. You are talented storyteller and I can’t wait for your next book.

I can’t finish it

I am returning this book. I have horses. Have been helped by the interaction with them. In addition I’ve had two children. This author should have had another person narrate her book. She is boring and often her sharing borders on whining — at least in my ears. I bought this believing it would be a book I could relate to but I simply cannot. Coming from a well to do family, becoming an author married to a struggling filmmaker, and her shock at what having a child is like and returning to horses to ease her frustration/depression feels a bit pathetic as she pursues polo. Polo which any equestrian knows is the ultimate rich person’s sport. I’m also unsure what the memoir is about - a woman succeeding in her goal to break into a male dominated sport or the benefit the horse can provide for people undergoing stressors. I wanted to like this book. But I cannot.

Lovely self-revealing tale

Appreciate the author’s self-reflections and self-awareness and how she demonstrated that the best way to care for others is to fill your own tank first.

A sad rich girl

I did not like this book at all- someone who grew up with great privilege whining about her depression- while I appreciate the fact that horses CAN heal- that is the only aspect of this book that I could stomach

What a disappointment—her life and this!

The first chapter started off strong with lots of potential. All the talk of white horses and the use of beautiful language and imagery was very promising. But then we see who she really is—a whining white liberal woman who rails against capitalism while blubbering on about learning foreign languages and playing Polo, a sport for the rich. If you want to write another left-leaning political double-speak book, then just write it. But don’t hide behind the veil of a memoir that promised real substance when all you really wanted to do was spout off empty-headed nonsense about how the overturning of Roe vs Wade rocked your perfect little world. It was ridiculous. In one paragraph she’s ranting about the trauma of losing a baby then in the next paragraph she laments that the right to murder babies was just returned to the discretion of the state governments. She is so narcissistic. I pitied her husband and child having to live with her self-obsession and lack of contentment in her privileged life. I only wasted my time listening for 22 chapters, at first because I sincerely hoped it might improve, but it just got worse. Then I hung around for another chapter because her sniveling rants were like watching a bad accident. That’s a couple hours I will never get back.

Not what I expected. Disappointing

Not at all what I expected. The narrator had a very monotone voice. As a horsewoman I expected more

Disappointing.

Narcissistic writer who happens to like horses. I obviously didn’t pay attention to the description of the book. Sad little rich girl grows up and crams all her beliefs in one book. But with hardly any money still manages to play the elitist sport of polo, known as the sport of kings. Only good parts were about the horses she met along her self discovery journey and maybe stopped playing the blame game about her wealthy parents.