Winner of the Joyce Carol Oates Prize Finalist for the 2025 Oregon Book Award 'Willy Vlautin writes about people overlooked by society and overlooked by literature. In The Horse, he tells the story of a tenderhearted man who has a steady talent and a crushing addiction. It is both a work of extraordinary compassion and a really great novel.' -- Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake 'A moving tale of suffering and redemption, The Horse portrays the immense gravity of what it takes to be human in tough times, and the elusive grace that might just be grasped from music, animals, and memory.' -- Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse Award-winning author Willy Vlautin explores loneliness, art, regret, and hard-won empathy in this poignant novel--his most personal to date--that captures the life of a journeyman musician unable to escape the tragedies of his past. Al Ward lives on an isolated mining claim in the high desert of central Nevada fifty