by Christina Lynch ★★★★★
Penny Marcus is a third grade teacher whose life isn't going as smoothly as she'd like. Her marriage is on the rocks, her daughter needs to attend a special school, and the cost of the school and her care is rapidly depleting what little savings she and her estranged husband have left. But life gets significantly worse when the local sheriff's deputy pays her a visit one morning, only to handcuff her and bring her in. The charge? Murder in the second degree, from an event that happened 25 years prior when Penny was only twelve years old. Penny had challenges as a child, just like her daughter, but the bright spot in her childhood was her pony. And he might be the only hope she has of beating the murder charge against her.
The story is told from alternating points of view: Penny in present time, with flashbacks to the event in question, and "The Pony", whose story we pick up ten years prior to Penny's arrest. When we first meet Pony, though, he's in no mood to help any human, and certainly not Penny, for whom he holds a deep resentment. "Fifteen summers ago," he says, "I had my own little girl...Her name was Penny. Penny and I did everything together. Then one day out of the blue she up and sold me. With no warning she kicked me to the curb like an old bicycle or a Slinky that no longer slinks." This trauma has made Pony focused on one thing: vengeance. "I am a pony who is bent on revenge. I am the Iago of ponies, a furry Fury. I am both adorable and devious, and, until I get what I want, I'm going to make every human I meet pay for your collective crimes. I am a tiny, mop-topped demon, and I am coming for you."
As Penny tries to navigate the justice system, thousands of miles from home (she is extradited to Ithaca, New York from her home in California) and with no money for a lawyer, we follow Pony's journey through the years, as he bounces around birthday parties and ownership by pony-obsessed people. Christmas is prime season for him to change hands. "Every Christmas children all around the world wish for a pony. Rich, poor, urban, rural, boys, girls, it doesn't matter. Ponies are cuddly but fast, huggable yet slightly dangerous. They're like a motorcycle whose hair you can brush." He doesn't stick in one spot too long, since he's still upset about the abandonment. "I make a mental list of my favorite things: carrots, peppermints, grass, oats, anger. I reorder the list, putting oats and anger higher." Eventually, he comes to realize that he abandoned Penny, and he makes it his life's mission to reunite with her.
What follows is part mystery, part odyssey. We gradually come to learn the details of the events surrounding the murder for which Penny is charged, both through Penny's memories and Pony's. And we travel with Pony to all corners of the United States as he works with a cast of other animals to try to locate Penny. There are several intentional references to The Odyssey—Penny is named for Odysseus's wife Penelope, Pony is trying to get to Ithaca, he meets a goat named Circe, and several others. Like Odysseus, Pony wanders for ten years trying to find Penny. This is by no means a point-by-point retelling of Homer's classic, but the connections make for a fun secondary layer that readers can scavenge to find those Easter eggs sprinkled throughout.
Author Christina Lynch blends plenty of humor—Pony's chapters are consistently laugh-out-loud funny—with some unsubtle commentary on the state of the U.S. justice system, and the dichotomy of experiences between the experience for those with money and those without.
"Isn't the American system supposed to assume that you're innocent until proven guilty? Everything Penny has experienced has shown her that the opposite is true. If you are rich and accused of a crime, you hire a great lawyer, you get out on bail, and you await what will no doubt be a fair trial, maybe even one skewed in your favor, given how many cases district attorneys have to handle.
If you are poor, as Penny is now, her middle-class life having been sacrificed to Tella's (her daughter's) treatment, then you get locked up until your trial, which could take a long time, given the backed-up caseloads in the system. You get an overworked, underpaid public defender who probably just graduated from law school, has about five minutes to prepare your case, and is eager to move on to greener pastures. The scales of justice are heavily tilted against you."
Lynch also drops plenty of references to human's treatment of animals, whether it's buying/selling ponies and horses, euthanizing animals once they are "no longer useful", and a host of other unpleasantries. The darker observations never overshadow the levity, but there’s more than goofy pony passages in the novel.
The plotting is fine, although there are some interesting inconsistencies. Pony can allegedly smell scents from twenty years ago, but when Penny is nearby, he curiously doesn't immediately pick up her scent. There are also some eyebrow-raising situations in terms of what a pony might be capable of doing, but you just go with it. The central mystery is interesting, but it's not the reason to read it; Pony is. His sardonic wit and humor make those chapters thoroughly enjoyable, and it was easily the funniest book I read this year. I did this one as a mix of audiobook and print, and the audiobook performance by Blair Young reading Pony's chapters is masterful; I'd highly recommended it as the preferred format to experience the story.
As Amazon Editor Vannessa Cronin put it, "Who could have predicted that a mashup of The Odyssey and Black Beauty would be the feel-good mystery we all needed?" I couldn't agree more. This is likely not one I would have chosen purely based on the description, but it totally works, and it's well worth adding to your TBR list.
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