Broken A Love Story Review

Broken A Love Story
Lisa Jones

Source: Library

Synopsis: Writer Lisa Jones went to Wyoming for a four-day magazine assignment and came home four years later with a new life.

At a dusty corral on the Wind River Indian Reservation, she met Stanford Addison, a Northern Arapaho who seemed to transform everything around him. He gentled horses rather than breaking them by force. It was said that he could heal people of everything from cancer to bipolar disorder. He did all this from a wheelchair; he had been a quadriplegic for more than twenty years.

Intrigued, Lisa sat at Stanford's kitchen table and watched. She saw neighbors from the reservation and visitors from as far away as Holland bump up the dirt road to his battered modular home, seeking guidance and healing for what had broken in their lives. She followed him into the sweat lodge — a framework of willow limbs covered with quilts — where he used prayer and heat to shrink tumors and soothe agitated souls. Standing on his sun-blasted porch, pit bulls padding past her, she felt the vibration from thundering bands of Arabian horses that Stanford's young nephews brought to the ring to train.

And she listened to his story. Stanford spent his teenage years busting broncs, seducing girls, and dealing drugs. At twenty, he left the house for another night of partying. By morning, a violent accident had robbed him of his physical prowess and left in its place unwelcome spiritual powers — an exchange so shocking that Stanford spent several years trying to kill himself. But eventually he surrendered to his new life and mysterious gifts.

Over the years Lisa was a frequent visitor to Stanford's place, the reservation and its people worked on her, exposing and healing theplaces where she, too, was broken.

Broken entwines her story with Stanford's, exploring powerful spirits, material poverty, spiritual wealth, friendship, violence, confusion, death, and above all else,"a love that comes before and after and above and below romantic love."

Review: I was looking through our libraries shelf of "new" releases when I came upon this one. The cover is what caught my eye....I have a "thing" for horses....I just LOVE them. As I was reading I got a little lesson in Native American history, which I did not expect but I thought it fit really well with the story. I also learned that life on the "rez" is not all that great....you pretty much have to learn how to go without in many case and that you are judged by your skin color. The characters (main and supporting) all have very interesting stories too. A little something that I picked up from this book from the author and the rest of the characters is that we are all a little bit "broken" it's just a matter of figuring out how to put the pieces back together again.

Overall, this was a really good book. I was really happy that I checked this one out. It did take me a little longer to get read than I would have liked (dang real life!) but it was totally worth that extra time.