Book Launch: The Year of the Horses with author Courtney Maum in conversation with Elissa Altman

Date: 05/03/2022
Time: 5:30 pm-6:30 pm

We are so excited and honored to host Courtney Maum for the launch of her memoir The Year of the Horses. For this event, she will be in conversation with author Elissa Altman, whose latest book Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing was published in 2019.

Sharp, heartfelt, and cathartic, The Year of the Horses captures a woman’s journey out of depression and the horses that guide her, physically and emotionally, on a new path forward. At the age of thirty-seven, Courtney Maum 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 privileged past, 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 contemporary horseback riding—Courtney becomes reacquainted with herself not only as a rider but as a mother, wife,  daughter,  writer, and woman. Alternating timelines and braided with historical portraits of women and horses alongside history’s attempts to tame both parties, The Year of the Horses is an inspiring love letter to the power of animals—and humans—to heal the mind and the heart.

Praise for The Year of the Horses

“Entertaining. . . . vivid and exuberantly cathartic.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A sensitive, well-rendered chronicle of healing.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“A vulnerable and human story which could be a favorite for book clubs.”

—Booklist

“Tender, honest, and beautifully written.”
—Kate Baer, author of What Kind Of Woman

“Searing, lucid, tender and wise, The Year of the Horses is a moving, beautifully-written interrogation into a complicated, privileged childhood and it’s aftermath. . . . Oh, and it’s also a page-turner. I tore through it with immense pleasure.”
 —Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance

“Gorgeously written, wry but loving, heartbreaking and, most of all, roving. . . . The Year of the Horses is a memoir of power and beauty and pain that moves across the world like the beautiful horses that carry it.” 

—Lisa Taddeo, author of Animal

“The Year of the Horses is a beautiful, unflinching exploration of darkness and self-forgiveness, terror and tenderness.”
—Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses

“Deeply moving, and funny.”
—Kareem Rosser, author of Crossing the Line

Find out more about Courtney’s forthcoming book tour here.

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