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Dead animals abound in this book. Our story opens as John Denson and his girlfriend, former FBI agent Annie Dancer, come upon a pod of beached whales on the Oregon coast. From there, we move into a story about the mysterious deaths of Spanish mustangs on the ranges of the West. A television newswoman brings the story to the public and a consortium of interested conservationists hires the Densons' firm to investigate the deaths. As the story unfolds, we find that previously several German jumping horses also died mysteriously, and many believe that the two episodes are linked. The three partners in the firm, Denson, Dancer and Sees-the-Night ride the range in search of clues. In the evenings Denson experiences strange out-of-body marijuana-fueled dreams that lead him to believe that he is entering into a cosmic confrontation between good and evil. There is even an entity called T who is Denson's creator and who gets in an occasional quasi-philosophical riff. We never learn whether T is the author or God or some master manipulator, but I would bet the ranch that T owes his genesis to Q, the quirky super-power on Stark Trek: The Next Generation. Many colorful over-the-top characters show up in the story. When Denson arrives for an interview with Marya von Bayer, for example, she answers the door wearing a translucent red cowboy shirt, silver chaps over Levi tights, and a holstered revolver. Then she proceeds to try to seduce him, a fate he escapes when she passes out drunk. There's also a character named Humping Buck. And an image of vagina dentata (vagina with teeth) figures prominently in the plot. PONY GIRLS is not a conventional mystery. If you lived through the 60s you will recognize the protagonist. He's the pothead sitting in the corner of the coffee house lost in his cannabis dreams. He rants on and on, expecting you to find his ramblings so very interesting that you, too, will want to dream the dream along with him. That's not to say that Hoyt's dream doesn't have some nice writing in it. It does. And it's got some interesting information on the history of the mustang. But it is definitely not a dream I enjoyed entering. For one thing, there's the whole premise of PONY GIRLS. The 'pony girls' of the title are women who have been praised from childhood for their beauty. They "ride to their future laughing and with high hopes." Those with "good conformation" succeed. Those lacking it have a harder time. (This is truly the author's premise. I did not make this up. Check page 51.) Interestingly, there is no discussion of male conformation. Luckily, the eugenics manual on good human conformation hasn't been written yet, so maybe there's still a smidgen of hope for women after all. Now, I'm not going to argue here that Hoyt doesn't have a right to his Neanderthal world-view. He does. And if you're in the right mood you might really enjoy the wacky fable he's put together here. Controlled substances might even enhance your enjoyment. I'll only remind perspective readers that attitudes like Hoyt's gave birth to the women's movement in the 60s. If you've never heard the misogynist rap before you might find it interesting in a sort of anthropological throwback sort of way.
Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, June 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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