Oh my this novel is so gorgeous and moving. About matters of the heart, about war’s impact on not just nations but individuals over generations. About how families are knitted together and how they survive with heartbreak just around the corner. How solace can be found in nature. . . . This is one of those rare novels that quietly will not leave the reader alone and untouched. Just beautiful.

Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield’s Books (Northern California)

Like the Appearance of Horses

Rooted in the small, mountain town of Dardan, Pennsylvania, where patriarch Jozef Vinich settled after surviving World War I, Like the Appearance of Horses immerses us in the intimate lives of a family whose fierce bonds have been shaped by the great conflicts of the past century. In spare, breathtaking prose, Andrew Krivak delivers a deeply compassionate story about three generations who built a new life in America, participated in the Romani resistance during World War II, survived Vietnamese POW camps, watched their children deploy to Iraq, and did everything they could to heal the wounds of war when the fighting was over.

Massachusetts Book Awards Longlist

American Booksellers Association Indie Next List for Reading Groups

Reading Group Choices “Top Picks” selection

Library Journal “Best Literary Fiction of the Year” selection

Washington Independent Review of Books “Favorite Books of the Year” selection

Saturday Evening Post “Hot Reads” selection

Shelf Unbound “Recommended Reading” selection

Literary Hub “New Books!” selection

Book Marks “Best Reviewed Books of the Week” selection

BookBrowse “Best Books Publishing This Week” selection

Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library “Book of the Week” selection

Denver Public Library “Book Buzz” selection

cover image of Like the Appearance of Horses

Paperback

ISBN
9781954276314

Hardcover

ISBN
9781954276130

Ebook

ISBN
9781954276147

Andrew Krivak discusses his inspirations for Like the Appearance of Horses and the previous novels of the Dardan Trilogy in the Brodart “Tell Me More” series and with the Somerville Arts Council, Image, Fiction Writers Review, Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, and on Keen On and WBUR Here & Now.

Preview Like the Appearance of Horses at Shelf Unbound and Literary Hub, and find rich resources for your book club discussions at Reading Group Choices.

portrait of Andrew Krivak
Sharona Jacobs

Andrew Krivak is an award-winning writer whose books include The Bear, a Banff Mountain Book Competition winner, Massachusetts Book Awards winner, and National Endowment for the Arts Big Read selection, as well as the freestanding novels of the Dardan Trilogy: The Sojourn, a National Book Award finalist and winner of both the Chautauqua Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize; The Signal Flame, a Chautauqua Prize finalist; and Like the Appearance of Horses, a Library Journal “Best Book of the Year” and Indie Next List for Reading Groups selection. He lives with his wife and three children in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

visit author page »

Praise for Like the Appearance of Horses

Read this! You’ll never be the same again.

Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore (Spokane, WA)

Compelling and deftly crafted.

Midwest Book Review

Krivak impresses with this layered story of deferred homecomings and the elusive nature of peace.

Publishers Weekly

Subtle and nuanced.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

[An] intensely readable whopper of a book.

Library Journal (starred review)

Krivak’s resplendent multigenerational family saga expertly braids the horrors of war with the struggles of those waiting for loved ones to return home.

Booklist (starred review)

[Krivak’s] prose is spare and exquisite, breathing life into the mountains, the forests, and the foxholes these characters inhabit. A beautifully emotional and delicate novel.

Historical Novels Review

A startling clarity characterizes [Krivak’s] language, which can only be called luminous.

Washington Independent Review of Books

Lyrical, moving. . . . While Krivak depicts the violence of war with frightening intimacy, he’s also attuned to the persistence of beauty and grace in nature and in what love endures.

Fordham Magazine

Forceful and absorbing.

WOSU

Raises provocative questions about how we perceive and engage with the past and is a further testament to Krivak’s masterful abilities as a storyteller.

WBUR

Krivak’s Homeric novel is at once intimate and sweeping, expanding an epic story set into motion in The Sojourn. Tenderly attentive to all that is given and taken by war, Like the Appearance of Horses is a graceful, heroic accomplishment that speaks to the costs of duty when violence is as constant as the Pennsylvania mountains that anchor and separate this indelible family we’ve come to know so personally.

Asako Serizawa, author of Inheritors

Andrew Krivak charts a razor-fine line between war and peace, damnation and redemption, estrangement and love, and along the way gives us a gorgeously detailed portrait of an American family. Whether he’s writing about battle, the natural world, or the most private, searing matters of the heart, Krivak brings a rare mastery to the page, a synthesis of language and deep perception that delivers revelation after revelation. Like the Appearance of Horses is a major achievement.

Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Devil Makes Three