Erin O'Malley is the author of the new memoir The Brat and the Bullfighter: A Love Story. It focuses on her relationship with her horse, Arty. She lives near Seattle.
Q: What inspired you to write The Brat and the Bullfighter?
A: I wanted to give my horse a voice. Horses are always trying to communicate with us, but I’m just not so sure we always know how to listen. For example, I get pretty riled when I hear them described as naughty, lazy, or crazy.
We ask so much of them—so much that they never asked for, if that makes sense. We move them, isolate them, put them in strange environments, expect instant trust and compliance—then call them difficult when they react like the prey animals they are.
So often, what looks like defiance is really confusion or fear. Not a horse being a jerk, just one who’s overwhelmed.
By trying to imagine life through Arty’s eyes, I hoped to understand him better and tell his side of the story. To portray him as the incredible soul he is.
My touchstone was always: If this book could change even one person’s perspective about horses and the importance of not only their physical but also their mental well-being, I’ve done my job.
Q: How would you describe the dynamic between you and Arty, and can you say more about why you chose to tell part of the story from his perspective?
A: He’s one of the great loves of my life. To me, he’s extraordinary in every way—smart, generous, beautiful, talented.
Even the title of the book is a double entendre. Yes, he’s a Lusitano with bullfighting in his blood, but he also doesn’t suffer fools and will call you on any B.S. If you show up in a bad mood or get distracted, he’s all “wake up!” or “later, skater.” He’s challenged me to become a better partner and a better person. He’s also taught me to stand up for myself.
It was never my intention to write a memoir; I just wanted to tell my horse’s story from his perspective.
The memoir idea actually came from my developmental editor. I was telling her how, as an Army brat, I deeply empathized with horses being moved around without a choice. I felt like Arty and I had lived oddly parallel journeys. She suggested I weave my story into his, and voila, a love story was born.
Q: The writer Elizabeth Rosner said of the book, “As a truly original love story, it’s also a timely reminder to listen with our hearts and to find our teachers in unexpected places.” What do you think of that description?
A: I’m so touched. Liz is an incredible talent and a beautiful human being, so for her to have felt and shared that means everything. It’s amazing to feel seen, especially by a writer of her caliber.
I also think she’s spot-on. It’s so important to get out of our heads and into our hearts. Horses demand that we be present. They let you love with abandon, and they teach us so much about patience, kindness, responsibility, and the importance of consistency and commitment. Some of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned, especially about love and loss, have happened in a pair of dusty boots and dirty breeches.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: Writing this book completely expanded my community. I’ve met incredibly talented writers and artists, traveled to retreats and conferences, and crossed paths with people I never would have met otherwise. I credit my horses for all of it, because they were the ones who pushed me down this path.
I hope readers walk away thinking about what it means to truly listen to a creature whose experience of the world is completely different from their own. At its heart, the book is a story about empathy and finding home. As a Toad the Wet Sprocket song goes, “not the place where you live, but the place where you belong.” For me, horses = home.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on two novels. The first is a rom-com about a woman on the verge of 40 who returns to Paris to exorcise a ghost from her past but instead runs into him on the street on Christmas Eve. I’m pitching it as Before Sunset meets A Christmas Carol.
The second is a “he said/she said” novel I’m co-writing with my friend Wedge Martin. It centers on two longtime friends, now in their 50s, who begin writing letters to one another from half a world away—partly out of boredom—only to discover they have completely different memories of the same events.
Soon, they’re imagining what might have happened if they’d met earlier . . . like, way earlier. The French Revolution, the Wild West, wherever their imaginations take them.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If you’re in the Bay Area, I’ll be at Book Passage in Corte Madera on August 1, in conversation with Brooke Warner. If you’re in the Seattle area, I’ll be at Barnes & Noble in Issaquah on August 8, in conversation with Carol Lynn McArdle. And just, thanks for reading.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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