Chasing Painted Horses

Winner of the 2020 PMC Indigenous Literature Award


When Ralph Thomas comes across graffiti of a horse in an alleyway in the early hours of the morning, he is stopped in his tracks. He recognizes this horse. A half-asleep Indigenous homeless man sees Ralph’s reaction to the horse and calls out to him. Over the course of a morning’s worth of hot coffee on a bitterly cold day, Ralph and the homeless man talk and Ralph remembers a troubling moment from his childhood when an odd little girl, Danielle, drew the most beautiful and intriguing horse on his mother’s Everything Wall, winning the competition set up for children on the Otter Lake Reserve.
Ralph has lived with many questions that arose from his eleventh winter. What did the horse mean — to him, his sister, his best friend, and, most importantly, the girl who drew it? These questions have never left him.
Chasing Painted Horses has a magical, fablelike quality that will enchant readers, and haunt them, for years to come.

Reviews

“Chasing Painted Horses by Drew Hayden Taylor (Curve Lake Anishinaabe) is an enchanting novel about how finding some equestrienne graffiti in an alley compels police officer Ralph Thomas to wonder about an extraordinary girl named Danielle. In their youth, Danielle drew a horse on the creative space known as ‘The Everything Wall,’ creating a lasting image the officer must now contend with. Flashing between Thomas’ interactions with a gifted, homeless Cree named Harry and his recollections of Danielle and others, Taylor’s genius for writing didactic comedies are on full display. Taylor’s faithful readers will recognize that this novel expands on stories he explored earlier in his career, revisiting the characters and creative spaces that tug on the reins around one’s heart.”