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Unexpected Find
By Hayleigh Sol
★ ★ ★ ★ 4 STARS
Unexpected Healers is a collection of easy to read, feel-good short stories primarily about horses as mediums for psychological healing. Author, Laurie Ingebritsen, a therapist and avid horsewoman has recounted touching episodes where women and children suffering from the trauma of abuse make rapid and remarkable progress toward positive behavioural change with equine-assisted psychotherapy.
Though her grammar is flawless, Ingebritsen’s prose leans toward being didactic. She sets up the scene and then tells the reader what the character is feeling, not unlike a psychologist’s case book, leaving no room for reader interpretation. She even summarizes the endings making sure nothing is left to our imagination. And when it comes to imagination, there’s not much of that with each story similar to the next; a person arrives with a problem and a horse resolves it. No surprises.
Presented in a linear fashion, all the stories are narrated in a passive voice, told rather than shown, denying the reader the opportunity to experience events as they unfold. Indeed, two stories have no dialogue whatsoever.
Unexpected Healers succeeds when read as a testament to equine-assisted psychotherapy and a tribute to the beautiful and noble horse, but stumbles as a work of literature.
Really enjoyed these two short stories by Octavia E. Butler. They were wonderful and I was left wanting more.
Per usual, here are my reviews for the two stories.
A Necessary Being”(5 stars)-Butler creates a world in which the color of a person's skin means they are meant to be leaders. We find out that these "people" are able to change colors which shows what type of caste they belong to. We follow Tahneh who is a Hao. Hao are kidnapped and forced to govern "tribes". We get peeks into what was done to Taneh's father who was the Hao before her. Tahneh is not able to have a child which means her "tribe" is desperate for another Hao. When a Hao and two other "people" are found nearby, Tahneh can either go along with what her people want, or try to steer them to something new. This story really plays with race, class structure, and consent. You can see pieces of plots and narrative that will show up in Butler's Xenogenesis series.
Childfinder" (5 stars)-Way too short. Seriously. I wanted more. We are in a new world when those who have telepathic abilities are valued. An older woman has found a new child with these abilities. We find out that she is focusing on finding black children and trying to hide them from a larger organization who does not have their best interest at heart. We have Butler playing with the angry black woman trope a bit and how black people do their best at not showing their feelings, i.e. their hatred. Who better to go out and find children with special abilities and teach them to keep their feelings inside. This really did read like a start to a longer book and I really really wanted that longer book.
Just finished "A Necessary Being”. A story that follows peoples whose coloring decides who rules. This reminds me somewhat of Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy. She delves into race, consent, and class structures. I thought the story really worked. We follow Tahneh whose father was a Hao. The Hao are rare and are put forth as leaders for different tribes and are even crippled, kidnapped, etc in order for tribes to always have a Hao. When another Hao is found nearby, her tribe goes about trying to capture him and his companions. Tahneh is trapped doing what she has to in order to give her people a future, or doing something that can cause them all to die out.
