Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse

Description

164 pages
$7.95
ISBN 0-88894-431-4

Publisher

Year

1984

Contributor

Reviewed by Bruce Hunter

Bruce Hunter was a Toronto-based poet, editor and teacher.

Review

Breaking Smith’s Quarter Horse is a reprint of journalist Paul St. Pierre’s 1966 novel published by Ryerson Press. Set in the Cariboo country of north-central B.C., the book is, at its best, vivid, folksy and compelling. At its worst, it is draggy, clichéd, and off-putting.

St. Pierre has a good ear for dialogue that fails only when he tries to impose an aw-shucks posture on it. He’s got a journalist’s eye for the nitty-gritty of life and he portrays the underbelly of a small town from the drunk up to the judge — with more reverence for the former than the latter. He’s also got a journalist’s sense of Canadian history and social conscience. All these things considered, this is a good book for a high school or college Canadian studies or CanLit course.

The central conflict is this: a local rancher, sparely named Smith, gets mixed up in the murder trial of a local Indian whom he has hired to break a horse. Given the treatment of Indians in Canada as a whole and in B.C. in particular, the murder trial has significance in a larger context. St. Pierre fails to realize this story fully in a national, social context; but on the local, immediate level the story of the Indians is handled well, even wonderfully at times. His description of the dour local judge is a fine study in contradictions. His Indians are often crafty and poetic in response to the white man’s justice.

Ultimately, this is a story of trials: humans against nature, men against men — red and white. We need more writing of this sort. While St. Pierre gives his characters a sometimes shallow, journalistic treatment, he does finally deliver where so few have. This is material often overlooked by city-based authors; the book provides a valuable source of insight into the Cariboo country and its people. One other thing: Smith’s horse does get broken in the end, but this is no mere horse story.

 

Citation

St. Pierre, Paul, “Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed October 14, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/37173.