Graywolf Press

Will Testerman is a young Wyoming horse trainer determined to make something of himself. Money is tight at the family ranch, where he’s living again after a disastrous end to his job on the Texas show-horse circuit. He sees his chance with a beautiful quarter horse, a filly that might earn him a reputation, and spends his savings to buy her.

Armed with stories and the confidence of youth, he devotes himself to her training—first, in the familiar barns and corrals of home, then on a guest ranch in the rugged Absaroka Mountains, and, in the final trial, on the glittering, treacherous polo fields of Southern California.

With Boleto, Alyson Hagy delivers a masterfully told, exquisitely observed novel about our intimate relationships with animals and money, against the backdrop of a new West that is changing forever.

Praise for Boleto:

“To produce a novel as stirring and austerely beautiful as Boleto, a writer must be fluent in the languages of horses, of men, and of the American West. Alyson Hagy has command of all three, and she uses them to masterful effect in these pages.”

—Larry Watson

“Boleto is about the dusty and soulful making of a young horse whisperer; it has the warmth of smooth, copper-colored whisky running through every page, bound and determined to get you drunk with its beauty and precision. Hagy’s signature no-nonsense, spit-and-polish writing style pulls no punches in delivering a quiet, lingering novel that will open more space inside you than the expanse of a spring Wyoming sky.”

—Stacie M. Williams, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

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Boleto