Man & Horse

A memoir of a young man's 4,000-mile journey on horseback across 1970s America—an unforgettable adventure of self-discovery and close companionship that captures the world from a view like no other: as seen between a horse's ears "One of those rare and splendid books that stay with you long after you finish the last page.” —Bill Bryson, author of A Walk in the Woods

In the spring of 1974, twenty-three-year-old John Egenes set out from Ventura, California, on a Quarter Horse named Gizmo he'd raised himself. He had $100, a beat-up cavalry saddle, and a dream of crossing the country—a dream he’d been harboring since his boyhood in a broken home.

Over the next seven months, man and horse traveled through eleven states, trekking across America’s deserts, mountains, prairies, and small towns. They navigated by worn U.S. Geological Survey maps and dead reckoning, slept in graveyards and abandoned shacks, drank from (and bathed in) cattle tanks, and shared what little food they had (including the occasional Snickers bar for Gizmo)--enduring lightning storms, belligerent drunks, elk herds, and even a black widow bite.

Part-travelogue, part spiritual quest, Man & Horse is a memoir of rare authenticity, humor, and candor. As he trots along at a horse's pace, slowing down to take in his surroundings, Egenes reckons with the widening chasm between the analog America of the 1970s and the reality on hyperdrive we live in now, reminding us of what’s truly worth holding onto.