The Horse Whisperer

The Horse Whisperer (1995), a contemporary novel by Nicholas Evans, concerns a young woman Grace and her mother, Annie, who both grapple with the aftermath of a tragic car accident that kills Grace’s friend and one of their horses. Grace’s parents have different ideas of how to best help their daughter recover, creating tension in the family that they work through over the ensuing years. Ultimately, Grace finds inner healing by returning to her life working with horses. The story explores the intersections between human and animal communication and the lessons they can impart about compassion and emotional well-being. The book has also been adapted into a 1998 drama film of the same name.

The Horse Whisperer begins in northern New York on a morning in the middle of winter. Having traveled to the area for its good horseback riding terrain, teenager Grace MacLean and her friend Judith are riding up and down icy slopes. While ascending a particularly treacherous hill, Judith’s horse, Gulliver, slips, sliding into Grace’s horse, Pilgrim. They continue to slide down the hill along with their riders, into the path of an oncoming semitruck. Unable to stop, the truck skids on a slick patch into the riders and their horses. The impact kills Gulliver and Judith. Pilgrim and Grace survive but are severely wounded. The truck driver calls for help and an ambulance takes Grace to the hospital.

Due to the severe wounds Grace sustained on her right leg, the doctors recommend she have her right leg partially amputated. She undergoes this procedure, knowing that it will cripple her for life. As she physically recovers, she falls into a deep depression, unable to stop ruminating on her loss of mobility. She is tended to by her mother, Annie, who works for a high-profile magazine, and her father, Robert, a busy lawyer. Her parents are conflicted over whether they should try to save Annie’s horse, who is in a state of extreme pain. While Robert believes that the horse should be euthanized to relieve its suffering and inaugurate a new, freer period of life for Grace, Annie views the rehabilitation of Pilgrim as extremely important to Grace’s recovery. She also hypothesizes that Pilgrim is suffering more from emotional trauma than any physical ailments and that the antisocial symptoms of his trauma are causing his handlers to treat him even worse.



In an attempt to solve the problem of Pilgrim’s suffering, Annie travels with Grace and Pilgrim to a man in Montana, Tom Booker, who is known as a “horse whisperer.” There, Tom communicates with Pilgrim and begins to emotionally rehabilitate him. Annie and Grace stay on the ranch, finding that it is the ideal setting for them. As the weeks progress, Annie and Tom fall in love and begin an affair without Robert’s knowledge. A critical point in Pilgrim’s healing journey is supposed to be when Grace can ride him again. However, Pilgrim is averse to being mounted while standing. Tom figures out that Pilgrim is more inclined to let her mount him when he is lying down. They attempt the technique with Grace, and she rides him for the first time since the accident.

With Pilgrim having been rehabilitated to a persistent healthy state, Annie and Grace pack up to return to New York. They have a farewell party at the ranch, where Annie and Tom let slip that they have been seeing each other. Enraged, Grace flees the ranch on horseback into the fields. Tom pursues her on his own horse. Blinded by rage, Grace inadvertently triggers a stampede of wild horses. Tom gets Pilgrim and Grace out of harm’s way, and then, throwing himself in front of Pilgrim, seemingly as a death wish, is trampled to death. Grace thinks it may have been an act of despair over the guilt of violating her trust.

At the end of the novel, Annie drives Grace and Pilgrim back to New York. She apologizes to Robert, who forgives her, understanding that she has always had an impulse to live a rural life far from the city. Annie learns she is pregnant, then gives birth to a child with the same striking blue eyes as Tom, a symbolic memento of her experience on the ranch and a sign that his memory will endure. The Horse Whisperer is fundamentally about the interconnectedness of families, including the animals they love, and the inability of either social or physical obstacles to divide them for very long.