“I am no more her then she is anymore me now.”
“The Illiad cannot contain what the horses have to say. It has neither the ear for their speech nor for their hearts.”
“You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.”
“ ‘You could stick around and help me dig up Landry,’ Kalin said then. “ ‘Who?’”
“I dreamt once I had a pony, but what I rode was a myth.”
I could keep with the quotes, the ones that rip or bruise the skin, some sharp some dull, but all landing on their mark – the novel is over 1200 pages after all, it’s not wanting of quotable passages – but I’ll limit it to these. Suffice it to say, Mark Z. Danielewski’s Tom’s Crossing (Patheon Books 2025) is likely going to be my top read of 2026 and is undoubtedly in my top ten of the last decade. It is Lonesome Dove (Kalin is Cal and Tom is Gus) meets my favorite King novels, kissed with Holes, of all things – and what emerges is something epic and ambitious, a ghost story of a western that breathes life into ancient legends and local lore while never getting too comfortable in its own skin. It’s a smart, slow burn that builds anxiety and twists at the heart and guts of the reader with a skilled precision – ambitious in scope but never once slipping.
The novel is about the friendship between two boys, Tom and Kalin, and their bond with the two horses that don’t belong to them – Mouse and Navidad. When Tom is on his deathbed, Kalin promises to finish what they’d started – to free the two horses by taking them to the Crossing, a dangerous journey up the canyon walls that most would say is impassable and impossible. Tom’s younger sister, Landry, overhears the promise and, when the time comes, sets out on her trusty steed, Jojo, to join Kalin, who is being led by the ghost of her brother on his ghost horse, Ash.
What happens next is the stuff people sing songs about, make paintings about. Seriously, the novel is littered with the art born of Kalin and Landry’s adventure into the canyon, the multiple confrontations with the notorious and blood thirsty Porch family, a layered retelling such that the reader doesn’t know who is telling the story (I had my theories but received definitive proof around page 500) or how it’s going to end up. (Heroes don’t die, right?) It’s a story of a story. Chapter 22 is about an art show centered around those October 1982 events (I’ve seen criticism about that chapter, but it was a necessary breather of information, almost a recap of the proceeding hundreds of pages – that served to add its own layer.)
There were 3 brief scenes that gutted me.
Russel and Cavalry after Russel’s death. (There are actually about three parts where this comes up and my heart broke in all three.)
Tom forgetting Landry.
How Kalin meets his end.
Just read this book.
Things of note
The curse.
The role of the Church and the history of the Church.
Politics and landgrabs.
The relationship between Sondra and Allison.
The intentional use of Calvary instead of Cavalry when discussing Egan’s horse.
Landry, adopted at age 6, being Samoan and African American.
Kalin’s father having killed a Black cop.
The murder of Tom and Landry’s father.
Kalin’s hat going from white to black.
Kalin’s two talents.
The pieces in the art show, including the thumb nail.
The Porch and Gatestone feud.
The animals. All of them.
A Girl Named Tommi 