About the Author

Ginger Gaffney is a top-ranked horse trainer. She received an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and her work has been published in Tin House and Utne Reader. She lives in Velarde, New Mexico.

Reviews

"Gaffney has a breathtaking and at times nearly otherworldly ability to read horses by closely studying their bodies, and then to capture what she sees with her prose. ...[T]ruly transcendent."
*Jessica Lustig - New York Times Book Review*

"Ginger Gaffney writes the intricacies of the equine-human relationship as well as I have ever seen it written…She knows a horse’s mind as well as she knows her own. You will remember the tenacious and utterly winning people that populate Half Broke for a long, long time, and you will never forget the horses."
*Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek*

"Written with clarity and compassion, Half Broke is about the astounding power of horses to heal broken human beings. It shows a side of New Mexico that is seldom seen—the poverty and the struggle, but also the hopefulness and odd beauty of spirit within the people and the horses."
*Leslie Marmon Silko, author of Ceremony*

"Half Broke is a love song to the broken ones, be they human or beast, and all the ways they find to mend. Ginger Gaffney’s prose is as clean and lovely as the land she describes, and this story is one that hinges on some of the deepest truths. Among them the fact that loving well is the best medicine, and though we may not recover in a way that preserves the person we were, such loss is not without mercy."
*Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me*

"Ginger Gaffney is a bold and original talent. This poignant, positive story of human and equine transformation subtly combines the author’s own healing with the challenge of teaching difficult people to work with deeply scared horses. The characters leap off the page and into your heart. Savor this book, and then buy a copy for your best friend."
*Anne Hillerman, New York Times best-selling author of the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito novels*

"Gaffney pulls off the impressive feat of translating horses and humans. She creates lyricism through experience, landscape, and empathy."
*Gretchen Lida - Washington Independent Review of Books*

"Fascinating. … [S]ome of the most compelling characters here don’t speak in words: they are horses. And in Gaffney’s story, they come alive."
*Deborah Hopkinson - BookPage*

""Half Broke" — with its painful candor and spare, incisive prose — is captivating."
*Michael Upchurch - Seattle Times*

"This book astonished, excited, enlightened, and humbled me. I loved it, loved it, loved it. This marvelous memoir, peopled with folks in serious trouble of one kind or another, and the horses they care for, creatures with their own sophisticated ways of communicating, taught me as much about language as have my seventy-seven years on the planet."
*Abigail Thomas, New York Times best-selling author of What Comes Next and How to Like It*

"With sensitive, soul-bearing prose, Gaffney weaves together her personal experiences as a horse trainer with the struggles of damaged humans and damaged horses. I was also moved by the depth of vulnerability and intuition of the horses."
*Jonathan Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows*

"[A] powerful debut."
*Publishers Weekly*

"In the pages of Half Broke is the rare gift of story exquisitely told, a book that shows us how to save ourselves by saving what we’ve left behind."
*Nickole Brown, author of To Those Who Were Our First Gods*

"Half Broke asks us to look at horses and ourselves in a new way. Gaffney’s vivid and engaging stories of 'teaching horses how to feel comfortable in the world of humans' inspires us, like the author, to 'love their world more.' A very moving book for all animal lovers from a true horse whisperer."
*Brenda Peterson, author of Wolf Nation: The Life, Death, and Return of Wild American Wolves*

"An engaging ... [and] heartening story of healing and interspecies connection."
*Kirkus Reviews*