book pick
Blue-ribbon writing
Author finds success right out of the gate
JIM FAGIOLO
By Stephanie E. Ponder
AS WITH MANY young
girls, author Aryn Kyle’s
first love was a horse. Her
parents bought her an
Appaloosa when she was
11. After a year of working
together, their original
mutual dislike evolved into
a deep love that translated
into success after success at
horse competitions.
In addition to her love
of horses, Kyle also nurtured a love of writing from
an early age. (She started
her first novel, about a
magical puppy, in the fourth grade.) Kyle remained
true to her goal while she was an English and creative
writing major and while working on her master’s of
fine art degree.
Years later she tapped into both passions to craft
this month’s book buyer’s pick, The God of Animals.
Like many writers, Kyle has held a variety of
side jobs. She edited children’s math books, did
some online writing and even helped a cousin
paint houses—a job for which, she says, she was too
detail oriented.
Kyle points out the common thread: They were
all solitary jobs that allowed her as much time as possible to write.
A year after graduating from University of
Montana’s creative writing program in 2003, Kyle
submitted a short story, “Foaling Season,” to The
Atlantic Monthly.
Aryn Kyle
Signed book giveaway
COSTCO HAS 50 SIGNED copies of Aryn
Kyle’s The God of Animals to give away. For
a chance to win, send an e-mail with your
name and mailing address to giveaway@
costco.com, with “Aryn Kyle” in the subject line. Or print your name, address and
daytime phone number on a postcard or
letter and send it to: Aryn Kyle, The Costco
Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA
98124-1088.
NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS
NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.
Purchase will not improve odds of winning. S weepstakes is sponsored
by Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, 11th Floor, New
York, NY 10020. Open to legal residents of the U. S. (except Puerto Rico)
who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household.
Entries must be received by April 1, 2010. Winners will be randomly
selected and noti;ed by mail on or before May 1, 2010. The value
of the prize is $15. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible
for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning
depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of
Costco or Simon & Schuster and their families are not eligible.
“It was the very first thing I sent off,”
Kyle tells The Connection from her home
in New York City. “My cover letter was two
lines because I had nothing to pad it with.”
The story was about a 12-year-old
girl, Alice Winston, who lives with her
father and bedridden mother on a working horse ranch in Desert Valley, Colorado.
Alice spends her time helping her father,
thinking about her older sister who
recently ran off with a rodeo cowboy and
obsessing about a classmate whose body
was fished from a nearby canal. As a
means of bringing in some money, Alice’s
father agrees to train a wealthy young girl,
Sheila Altman, to ride and show horses.
Within a matter of weeks, Kyle heard from the
magazine’s fiction editor that she would soon be a
published author. It took a little longer for her to realize that her submission was more than a short story.
MIRIAM BERKLE Y
IF THERE’S ONE thing I’d
rather not remember, it’s
the awkwardness of my
adolescence. Instead of
revisiting those memories, I
choose to read books about
young adults who are
figuring out how they fit
into the world. This month’s
pick, Aryn Kyle’s The God of
Animals, is a great example.
The main character,
Alice Winston, is a friendless
“It was featured in Best American Magazine
Writing, and people kept reading it and telling me
that it was the beginning of a novel,” says Kyle.
It wasn’t until she imagined a scene between
Alice and Sheila’s mother that Kyle knew there was
more to tell. She explains, “Once that scene was in
my head it started to gestate. It came really quick …
a year to 18 months.” The result is The God of
Animals, which was published in 2007. The story
grew to include a group of wealthy women, nicknamed the Catfish, who board their horses at the
ranch, a favorite boarder of her father’s and an adult
crush for Alice.
12-year-old, whose prime
sources of companionship
are her hardworking father,
bedridden mother and a
troubled teacher. Kyle
effortlessly captures the
uncertertainty many of us
felt about what we were
seeing in the adults around
us and how we translated
that information to fit our
own versions of reality.
Kyle’s The God of
Animals is available in most
Costco warehouses and at
Kyle intentionally chose a young person to relate
the story. She says she’s interested in children as narrators because they offer the “dimension of telling
the audience one thing and the reader seeing what’s
really there.”
Costco.com.
For more book picks,
see page 41.
Pennie Clark Ianniciello Costco Book Buyer
She also drew from her youth in Grand Junction,
Colorado, particularly the time she spent in the barn
around animals and trainers. She says she was fascinated by that kind of life and saw the barn as a magical
place with the cats, dogs and horses all living together.
Kids who gre w up on a ranch “had to be detached,
because they didn’t know how long an animal would
be around,” says Kyle. “I wondered what it would
be like to grow up in a world where you had
to be prepared to lose something.” It’s a
thread that she weaves into the animals
and people in Alice’s life.
FRANCE FREEMAN
Thoughts of loss may have fueled
the first novel, but right now Kyle’s
cup is running over. She’s well into a
second novel, and in April, Scribner is
publishing a collection of her short stories
about the lives of girls and women called
