Introduction:
While I haven’t met Sara Warner in person that I can recall, she did live in Tallahassee for a time, as do I, so I have been aware of her as a writer. I recall meeting her husband Pete LeForge, who is also a writer, at an event sponsored years ago by the Leon County Library. Both Sara and Pete were very active in the Tallahassee writing community when they lived here.
Somehow, I also was aware that Sara loves horses, so it is no surprise that her latest novel, Horse People, centers on horses and the people who care for them. From the very first page, I knew I was going to learn a lot about these splendid animals and their personalities.
Interview:
Donna Meredith: What motivated you to write this novel?
Sara Warner
Sara Warner: I have been fortunate to have a long life with horses and with many wonderful people who know and love horses. I’m sure that experience is a large part of what motivated me to create Horse People. People who make their lives with horses tend to rely on one another and share deeply in a special relationship with one of the world’s most beautiful creatures.
Also, I feel a lot of pain in the world, and one of the ways I have found to relieve it, in myself anyway, is to write it: to place the pain in the open and try out different avenues for leaving it behind. A friend of mine said, after reading Horse People, that it seemed the novel continually set out “how things are and then how things should be.” And I like that idea, the possibility that we can reconceive the pain in our lives and not be held hostage by it.
DM: Do you have personal reasons for focusing on immigration?
SW: I find the situation of immigrants today nothing short of hellish, and the dishonesty with which it is portrayed in order to serve the purposes of a few, should make it personal to everyone who relies on immigrants for services we all use every day. Many people the world over are facing war, disastrous climate change, famine, and violent regimes. Their best hope of survival is to migrate to a more peaceful place. And yet, when they try to find such a place, they encounter hostility, walls, hatred. The possibility of moving around in the world to find safety is denied them. But the advanced societies of the world need them, their energy and abilities that support many of our fundamental, daily needs. And instead of leading our society toward understanding and mutual aid, we are living in an era that stokes fear and distrust of people who are different than ourselves. So yes, immigration is personal, both to people who recognize it as being so, and those who don’t.
DM: Is the story about the wildlife shooting gallery completely fictional?
SW: The creation of the shooting gallery took a long time and was difficult for me to write. I became aware very slowly of this type of “game.” At first, I simply couldn’t believe people were actually shooting captive animals. I thought it was all pretend. But when I began hearing about online hunting, I started paying more attention to reports of illegal hunts of captive animals. Then, one day my father sent me a report of refugees trying to cross into the U.S. being shot by land owners. What struck me about it was that it was described almost like a game of one-upmanship. And it brought home to me the degree to which our society has allowed the dehumanization of people desperate to find a path to survival. It is a familiar dynamic to the denial of animals’ fear and pain. So, although the shooting gallery in Horse People is fictional, it is an amalgamation of similar situations that are all too real.
Donna Meredith
DM: The horses’ health is compromised in the riding school by improper handling by the children. Is this a common occurrence? How can parents choose a responsible riding school?
SW: A school horse’s life is a hard one because it takes years for riders to develop the skills and knowledge to be a quiet, considerate rider. School horses must tolerate rough and unbalanced riders in order to give those riders a chance to learn. So you want to look for a school where the school horses are treated like royalty. They should be well fed, feet tended regularly by a good farrier, groomed, and given plenty of turnout and rest. The instructor in charge of the lessons needs to protect the horses from injury by closely monitoring the students and providing supervision and exercises that help students gain feel and understanding without unduly stressing the horse. In the end, whoever is in charge of the horses must be able to step in when necessary to protect the horse from harm. In Horse People we see the contrast between the way school horses are treated in Mr. Price’s barn, where they are not protected, and Darbetta George’s barn, where they are.
DM: Could you share a few of your accomplishments riding, raising, and breeding horses?
SW: I have had many wonderful horses throughout my life. In 2008, a beautiful young stallion I bred and trained won Sport Horse Mature Champion Stallion in the Southeast. Several years later, his colt was US Dressage Federation National Reserve Champion colt. I earned several awards and recognitions, including my bronze medal from the USDF rider award program and completion of the L-judge program. Perhaps the most meaningful to me personally was a national recognition from the US Dressage Federation for outstanding humanitarian service assisting with horse rescue and recovery in the wake of Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf coast. I have also been immensely gratified by the wonderful students I have had the pleasure of teaching over the years, some of whom have become lifetime friends through our mutual devotion to horsemanship.
DM: What research went into this novel? The details about the Iraq War and Halliburton were interesting. All factual?
Sara Warner
SW: I have always been interested in the way events in our world unfold, so I read and listen to a variety of sources pretty much daily. I also taught literature at Florida State University for more than a decade, including a graduate course in the literature of conflict in the International Affairs Department. During this time, I had the opportunity to work with graduate students researching current conflicts around the world. Along with their brilliant insights and detailed analysis of what was taking place, we explored contemporary novels set in those far-off places. So, I consider that there was a tremendous amount of factual research that preceded the writing of Horse People.
When writing the novel though, I was really more focused on the way people experience an event or situation than in creating a factual account of an historical event. So the situations I create may allude to actual events that I have done extensive study of at one time, but in my novel the focus is more on reading the airwaves of my character’s world.
DM: Were any of your characters inspired by people you know?
SW: I’m quite sure that all my characters were inspired by people I know. I really don’t know how we would make characters without knowing people.
On the copyright page of my novels, there is a little comment that takes the form of the usual disclaimer in novels, the ones which claim that any resemblance of people or places to those in the novel is purely coincidental. However, my little comment has a different message. Instead of claiming that the people we know and the things that happen to us are completely unrelated to what we write, this little comment asserts that this novel is “sheer fiction.” And that the “resemblance of names, characters, and incidents to actual persons, places, and events results from the relationship which the world must always bear to works of this kind.” E.g., that they are utterly reliant on each other.
DM: Frank buys a horse because he hopes that taking care of something will help him heal. Do you find this to be true in your own life and in other people’s lives?
Sara Warner
SW: Gosh, I hope so, because I’m taking care of a lot of critters, lol. But yes, I do find it to be true. Taking care of others is a very powerful way to change the world, and to change your own outlook. There is so much violence and destruction in the world right now. We feel it even when it is on the other side of the planet. It’s like chronic inflammation in the body, only it is more a disease of the soul. We are living with chronic sadness caused by violence and the degraded state of our planet. But when we act together to take care of each other and our home, we find relief and peace. This is what finally makes us realize what we should be doing. Taking care of the things and creatures around us can give us the purpose and relief we need to endure.
There is a scene in Horse People in which Frank is offering Maria a job and a place for her and her young sons to live. She is nervous about accepting help from a strange white man although she desperately needs help. She hesitates, stares at Frank in confusion. Then she says:
“Does that little horse mean so much to you? Why would you help us this way? You’ve never even met my husband.”
Frank tries to think of what to say, to find the right way to explain himself. Then he says:
“I just got back from a war zone, Ms. Ramos. I very much need things to matter to me, because I have seen so much truly awful stuff, and lost people I cared about, until I just about don’t care if I live or die. I have a big house and money, but I need people around me. Not just people but good, caring people. When I realized what Tancho did for that little horse, I knew I wanted to thank him, and if possible to have him for a friend. So, I very much want to help you, to be a friend to him….”
DM: What is your next project?
SW: I want to try to finish a novel that is a sequel to my debut novel Still Waters. I have done a lot of work on it, but, as with Still Waters and Horse People, it is taking a long time for me to get clear about its path forward. It took more than a decade for me to write each of those novels. I do a lot of things besides writing in my life every day and it takes me a long time to write a novel. But there is a part of my mind that is always listening for what comes next. So I am thinking about working on that story, which is called Serata Wind.
DM: Any other question you want to answer?
SW: Is there a connection between reading and writing novels and understanding horses?
Seeing how different characters understand a situation is one of the most valuable aspects of reading literature. When we read, we can look into the perceptions of characters with widely varying views and experience ways of seeing the world that may be fundamentally different from our own.
I think all the best horse people read their horses in similar ways. They are open to understanding the perspective of their horses and they become much more attuned to their horses’ needs and actions. Horses are amazingly adept at understanding people and communicating their own ways, and the people who are drawn to them typically find them refreshingly honest, candid, curious, and open to friendship. Horses demand some of the best qualities from people, and it is not unusual for people who have been traumatized by human society to find relief in the society of horses…just as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver does at the end of his travels through the world.
DM: Thanks for taking time to talk with us, Sara. SLR wishes you continued success with your writing career.
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