One Good Horse (ISBN 0743265173)

Thoroughly enjoyed this read!:
Tom Groneberg's One Good Horse presents several characters from disparate times and influences. Several stories emerge, and are woven in, out and around the authors desire to buy, break and train one good horse. Initially, the books cast of characters seem unrelated as they move in and out of the story. But ever so masterfully this author breathes each one to life, and a common theme begins to coalesce and shimmer. Within each characters circumstance, sandwiched between all things ordinary, life folds tiny, subtle cataclysms that alter perceptions and expectations mercilessly for good or ill. The author opens a window into his own soul and humbly invites us to pause to wonder at the blessings and the disappointments of our naive and so often narrow expectations of life and its most precious commodity: time well spent; time purposefully spent. In this earthy book I can almost smell the hay and grass and hear the horses snort and breathe as I recognize life's brevity and beauty in the colors of the Montanta Sky. Just as in his book, The Secret Life of Cowboys, Tom Groneberg's transparency and gentle vulnerability in sharing his desires, his moments of bliss or epiphany and more often than not - his heartache and disappointment were a genuine delight.

one good writer:
"Remember that life is not always fair, but it is good. Success is measured by the size of your heart," Tom Groneberg writes in his elegiac nonfiction followup to his successful memoir, The Secret Life of Cowboys. This time out, Mr. Groneberg writes of the eponymous equine, Blue, interspersing his tale of searching for that horse with his tales as husband and father to three young sons. In the process, he acquits himself not just as an extraordinary writer, but as an extraordinary father as well.

One Good Book!:
One Good Horse picks up Tom's life where he is still in Montana working various ranch jobs to support his budding family. Dealing with all of the complications in his life, Tom decides that what he really needs is a horse. This is not to be an ordinary horse that belonged to another, Tom wants to buy an un-broke horse and go through the process of training him; not the old time approach of jumping on his back and breaking him but rather through kindness and teaching the horse what he needs to do without stress and confrontation. Concurrently Tom also chronicles the life of the horse as it eventually becomes part of the Groneberg family. For me, one of the things that makes this book special is the interjection of segments of Teddy Blue Abbott's wonderful book, We Pointed Them North. Teddy's colorful account of his cattle drive from Texas to Montana is beautifully woven in with Tom's own experiences and surprisingly transcends the century that divides the two literary works. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in the west (past and present alike) give this book a read - I believe you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Healing through horsemanship:
Mr. Groneberg knows the West and takes us there instantly. His characters struggle, live, relate, disengage, and escape just like those anywhere else, but here things move differently. Our hero's method of dealing with, or avoiding, the difficulties of human relationships is through focusing his efforts and passion on the process of training an unbroken horse. As the complex stories unravel, the dusty trail becomes clearer and the beauty of human fragility shines through.

WRITING AT ITS BEST:
Author Groneberg's spare, beautiful, prose could make you weep in its honest simplicity. He takes the reader on the most intimate of journeys into his heart, his soul, and his mind. His struggles to come to grips with the ordinariness of his life while still daring to reach for extraordinary that he dreams of, is brillantly woven into stories of the past and the present, the human and the equine. Rarely does a memoir touch my soul as this one has. Reading this felt like a privilege. I was enriched in so many ways. I am grateful for the gift od Tom Groneberg.