When Velveteen Vargas, an eleven-year-old Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn, comes to stay with a family in upstate New York, what begins as a two-week visit blossoms into something much more significant. Soon Velvet finds herself torn between her host family €”Ginger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic; and Paul, a college professor €”and her own deeply tormented mother. The one constant becomes Velvet s newly discovered passion for horse riding €”and especially for an abused, unruly mare named Fugly Girl. A stirring and deeply felt novel, The Mare is Mary Gaitskill s most poignant and powerful work yet €”a stunning exploration of a girl and her horse, and of the way we connect with people from all walks of life.