Half Broke

A Memoir

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Pub Date 4 Feb 2020 | Archive Date 31 Jan 2020

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Description

“You will remember these tenacious and utterly winning people for a long, long time, and you will never forget the horses.” — Pam Houston

An alternative prison ranch in New Mexico conducts a daring experiment: setting the troubled residents out to retrain an aggressive herd of horses. The horses and prisoners both arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many—the horses often abandoned and suspicious, the residents, some battling drug and alcohol addiction, emotionally, physically, and financially shattered. Ginger Gaffney’s job is to retrain the untrainable. With time, the horses and residents form a profound bond, and teach each other patience, control, and trust.

As Gaffney peels away the layers of her own story—a solitary childhood, painful introversion, and a transformative connection with her first horse, a filly named Belle—she, too, learns to trust people as much as she trusts horses.

Half Broke is a resonant memoir with a spirited, memorable cast that describes the fascinating ways both horses and humans seek relationships to survive.

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.

“You will remember these tenacious and utterly winning people for a long, long time, and you will never forget the horses.” — Pam Houston

An alternative prison ranch in New Mexico conducts a daring...


A Note From the Publisher

LibraryReads votes due by 1/1/20 and IndieNext votes due by 11/4/19.

LibraryReads votes due by 1/1/20 and IndieNext votes due by 11/4/19.


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781324003076
PRICE US$25.95 (USD)
PAGES 256

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Average rating from 9 members


Featured Reviews

This book appealed to me because I love horses and have been volunteering at an Equine therapeutic center for a number of years and have seen the transformational work horses and people make with each other. Ginger Gaffney lays bare her fears and opens up about feeling different at a time and place before Pride and the LGBT community helped people feel good about who they were.
My real interest was in the prison ranch and what they were doing there. The correlation between broken horses and broken people was clear and I respect Sarah and Flor, the leaders of the livestock team at the ranch for reaching out for help. Gaffney helped tame the wild horses and in turn tamed the wild prisoners who were all battling with their own demons. She instinctively knew that to help one she had to help the other too. Here were people and horses that had been so damaged by life that their only instinct was to hurt, but Gaffney showed them that by persistence, patience and kindness she could make them see the good in others, themselves and life again.
This isn't just a book for horse lovers, this is a book for anyone fighting demons, interested in human/animal connections and someone who loves a good ending.

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A most moving memoir from Ms. Ginger Gaffney. I enjoyed this read very much, as I’ve worked with horses off and on for decades, including therapy horses, and worked with female inmates, some on a prison work release program. Ms. Gaffney offers a brutally honest look at the ranch and it’s residents and how they relate (or not) to the horses and the program. As the residents gain confidence in themselves and their abilities, so does Ms. Gaffney. Her writing is beautiful and poetic; at times she is as skittish as the residents and the horses, yet she emerges strong and courageous, with a deeper knowledge of self. I could relate to her struggles as well as the residents and their equine charges. A touching and passionate look within, at the human condition, our self-esteem, how some people can be delicate and frail and broken over past events as well as the wonderful horses (some having been abused before their arrival at the ranch), and both triumphs and failures of the human spirit, and the human-animal bond. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it. Thank you to Netgalley, Ms. Gaffney, and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. #halfbroke #gingergaffney #netgalley

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Ginger Gaffney has written a poignant, thought-provoking accounting of her time on a ranch in New Mexico. Ginger is a horse trainer who specializes in horses who are the most difficult to train - those with damaged psyches as well as damaged bodies. This ranch is like no other - it is a ranch where felons apply to work, to learn a trade, and to take care of the animals. In addition, they learn social skills and other things they need to fit back into a society that has spit them out again and again. Ginger was called because the horses have been running in a pack, rather than a herd, and biting, kicking and trying to hurt anything that gets close to them. Ginger works with the horses to regain their trust and heal them, and with the residents who need to heal and learn to trust themselves and each other. Ginger, herself, has led a rough life and finds herself learning much from the horses and people too.

I was drawn to the cover of this book - a beautiful line drawing of a horse, half-in-shadow which is a great representation of Gaffney's tale. She flashes back to the events that got her involved with horses and the life that led her to mistrust herself as well as other humans. It is through working with horses, especially those who are as damaged as she, that Ginger finds a life that she loves. Her descriptions of the horses and people she encounters are so vivid they brought me to tears on many occassions. She's real and truthful without being overly sentimental. Horse-lovers will enjoy this book as will anyone who enjoys an interesting, enlightening read.

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