ARYN KYLE

 
PRAISE FOR THE GOD OF ANIMALS “Aryn Kyle’s The God of Animals is a moving, beautifully crafted novel about families, horses, love, death, class in America, and serious weather. Narrated by a twelve-year-old-girl, it contains a full adult measure of betrayal and desire and complex joy, and has a terrifying momentum by the end. It’s a wonderful book.” —Maile Meloy, author of Liars and Saints and Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It “Aryn Kyle’s stunning debut is a wry and moving look at a disappearing way of life...an astonishingly assured debut...powerfully understated, ruefully funny...it’s early Annie Proulx to whom she bears particular comparison.” —Vogue “[A] first novel that’s so strong, startling, and moving, that it’s a thoroughbred from the first page...In stark, gorgeous prose, Kyle tunnels into the dark heart of the connections between people and place...The God of Animals does what the best fiction does--it creates a whole living, breathing world and unfolds it in front of us, granting us entry into a place that, like this author, is impossible to forget.” —Caroline Leavitt, The Boston Globe “[A] beautiful first novel.” —Carolyn See, The Washington Post “[An] involving and accomplished first novel...Kyle has a gift for creating character, for making even the most minor players in Alice’s drama come alive on the page. And she ties up the strands of her plot in nervy and satisfying ways, so that nothing is predictable as The God of Animals twists and turns toward its conclusion. Aryn Kyle’s debut delivers all the fun of the books about horses that you loved as a kid but with the added weight and seriousness of a novel for grown-ups.” —Francine Prose, People “A memorable novel gracefully compares and contrasts the vast landscapes of the human condition--people butting up against each other, their natural surroundings and, most significantly, themselves. To find these elements expertly handled in a debut novel--as they are in The God of Animals--is a reason for readers to rejoice.” —Carol Memmott, USA Today “With her debut novel, Aryn Kyle seems poised to become one of America’s next great authors.” —Parade “Aryn Kyle is one of those handful of first-time novelists whose arrival trumpets what might be a major talent. Kyle’s The God of Animals is a coming-of-age tale that manages to be both elegiac and hard-nosed. It’s an impressive debut.” —Dorman Shindler, The Star Ledger “In Aryn Kyle’s affecting first novel, The God of Animals, the ordeals of horses believably reflect and frame the foolishness and suffering of their so-called masters...Kyle’s writing is strong, and Alice’s story sucks us into its stringent world, making us curious and worried... It’s a tribute to Kyle’s honest, unshowy writing that readers will want, with accelerating urgency, to find out what happens.” —The San Francisco Chronicle “Kyle writes perceptively in Alice’s voice, drawing the reader into the understated drama of this seminal summer in her life...the author paints an evocative portrait of the vast country in which her characters struggle. Raised in Colorado herself, Kyle knows well the territory of which she writes, from its mind-boggling beauty to the aftermath of drought and flooding. This captivating saga of a loving but dysfunctional family, melded with an ode to the harsh splendor of the West in the tradition of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong, is surely the stat of a promising career.” —Bookpage “This is a coming-of-age novel as layered and complicated as growing up can be. Kyle never loses her balance in this awesome debut. She is a subtle and controlled writer. Mirroring the life of humans and animals, especially horses, works on many levels. The brutality of horse training and the tender birth of the foals mixes seamlessly with Alice's preteen humiliations, her complicated, gradual understanding of how the adult world works...To write about such wild country, such beautiful land, and to know the people living in it, is a writer's dream. Kyle makes it seem easy. She makes the land breathe the characters and she makes the characters fit effortlessly into the land. It's as if this plot is an extension, a necessity, of this way of life. Kyle has a lovely new voice, one that will most certainly be added to the landscape of talented American writers.” —The Globe and Mail “An impressive debut.” —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer “[A] striking debut novel...Kyle writes an original coming of age story in a subtle but strong voice. The characters are rich and pure, and you come to know them as complete.” —Rocky Mountain News “Vivid..intriguing...Kyle’s...prose is a joy, fluid on the page. In 15 well-crafted chapters, Kyle creates a strong narrative pulse around these characters, capable of surprising Alice--and us.” —The Seattle Times “Kyle...is a seamless storyteller...the structure is as strong as a well made fence, despite the many story threads and characters. It will be wonderful to watch her write more and more.” —The Los Angeles Times “Elegant and haunting...This kind of desire, this yearning in all forms--physical, emotional, even spiritual--is the fascinating subject of author Aryn Kyle’s debut, a book that introduces a terrific literary talent.” —The Atlanta Journal Constitution “Like Annie Proulx and others before her, Aryn Kyle brilliantly reveals a vibrant female world pulsing at the heart of the protomasculine ranch life. Girls come for lessons and become women; women sit on the sidelines coaching their daughters and casting glances at Alice’s father. Many novels are published now about adolescents, but writing about them is actually quite difficult. They affect knowingness yet know little; they are loyal to a point, and then quick to betray their upbringing. Kyle understands all this and has a beautiful grasp of Alice’s voice.” —John Freeman, The St. Petersburg Times “[A] compelling book with complex characters you’ll grow to love...[a] wonderful coming-of-age book with special appeal to horse lovers.” —The Missourian “Gorgeous, cinematic prose. The God of Animals is a book with a strong bloodline: Jayne Anne Phillips’s Machine Dreams, Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, with their hard-luck families and wise, weary girl narrators. But the confidence, and the congratulations, belong to Kyle alone.” —Charlotte Observer “Intense and vivid writing, rich with detail...Alice, who takes to calling an equally isolated English teacher every night for long philosophic conversations, wonders what love is, and how you know when you’re in love...Kyle’s book is an eloquent answer.” —Sandy Bauers, Philadelphia Inquirer “Kyle’s obvious and delightfully unpostmodern pleasure in the old school art of storytelling is sure to make converts of all but the most jaded readers.” —Elle “Kyle has done an artful, careful job with The God of Animals, packing it with riveting details and insights...Kyle is deft at portraying the way an adolescent makes sense of the world...The novel follows the classic coming-of-age formula, but this is material that never gets old when the writer who works it as capable as Aryn Kyle. Like Nona Winston riding her horse, Aryn Kyle appears to be a natural.” —New West “This is a very impressive debut. Kyle’s prose is graceful and mature, and her themes are subtly stitched into the story. A powerful tale, from a writer with real promise, of a girl coming of age amid a dying way of life.” —Booklist “Kyle delivers the story in graceful, translucent prose...lyrical.” —Kirkus Reviews