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    Barn Blind
    Barn Blind
    Barn Blind
    Audiobook7 hours

    Barn Blind

    Written by Jane Smiley

    Narrated by Suzanne Toren

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Best-selling author and Pulitzer-Prize winner Jane Smiley crafts compelling novels filled with quiet strength and emotion. In Barn Blind she portrays a middle-aged woman so galvanized with success that she drives a wedge between herself and those who love her most. Kate Karlson's only focus in life is her Midwestern horse farm. Ignoring her husband, she spends long days giving riding lessons and training horses. To showcase her teaching ability, she enters her three sons and daughter in all the equestrian shows. But when her family dares to thwart her interests, the results bring tragedy and devastation. In this spellbinding tale of love, work, and duty, Jane Smiley examines the excesses we sometimes commit in the name of ambition. Narrator Suzanne Toren's dramatic performance highlights the daily rigors and joys of the equestrian life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 2, 2008
    ISBN9781436100595
    Barn Blind
    Author

    Jane Smiley

    Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. Her novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992, and her novel The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton won the 1999 Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1987. Her novel Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and her novel, Private Life, was chosen as one of the best books of 2010 by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.

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    Reviews for Barn Blind

    3.5/5

    64 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I am a big fan of Smiley because of her later novels. This first novel lacks polish in some places, but it has real grit and feeling. Yes it is set in an environment of horse competition, and has some details about that competition, but the scope and appeal of the book is not limited by that subject.
    • 3/5
      A well-written story of a family caught in the spell of the mother's obsession and ambition. Shakespearean in its overtones. Kate, the mother and wife is blinded to all around her, husband's inner life and needs, children's actual aspiration and feelings, in her quest to produce a champion and make a name for herself in the equestrian world. With Kate in love with her own equine philosophies(she seems to have no inner or outer life that does not have to do with horses) and cocksure in her way of living and raising children, each family member must find way to survive in this virtual vacuum. Axel, Kate's husband is perhaps the most endearing of the characters. His sympathy for his children, especially his nurturing love for his daughter was beautifully developed. And yet, the thrall in which his wife holds him is more than he can defeat. The sturdy and defiant younger son is also interesting. As the book jacket will tell you, this is a tragedy. How the tragedy plays out is fairly easy to see early on. I suppose this book has so many things that would normally make this book a winner with me, however, I just liked it. I think my biggest challenges with it are that there seems to be little humor as I had expected from some of her other works, and then Kate casts such a chilly, bloodless pall over the entire story.
    • 3/5
      Let me begin by saying that Jane Smiley appears to be a talented writer. I have never read anything by her before, but her ability comes through this title. Even if the title itself has a horrible collection of characters and cringe worthy plot development. I found myself actively disliking each character, and as one became sympathetic, something would happen to harden me against them again. Let’s analyze – Mom: egotistical control freak mastering the art of conditional love. Dad: enabler. Kids: self centered individually and collectively jealous of each other competing for their parents’ attention. The entire story revolves around their family horse farm in Illinois, and as a born and bred Illinoisan, I found the continual comparisons of Illinois as inferior to the east coast increasingly offensive, but that’s me being petty. But the horsing world plays a MAJOR part of this book. Since I know nothing about horses, other than some $2 betting at Arlington Race Track when I was a kid, I did not appreciate the clear knowledge the author had of this topic. For an equestrian, that may help carry this book further, but for me, I found I just wanted it to end so I could be free of the dysfunction. Since I am confident that Smiley intended all of this, she gets full credit for achieving her goal – but for actual reading enjoyment, it falls flat for me.