A horse isn’t just a horse in Horse Heaven, an engaging and beautifully written new novel that explores the world of thoroughbred horseracing.

This enormous, sweeping work not only plumbs the depths of the racing horseracing industry, but explores the character of humans and horses alike.

Published in April, Horse Heaven is the latest novel from Jane Smiley, whose previous works of fiction include Barn Blind, The Age of Grief, Moo, and the 1992 Pulitzer-Prize-winning A Thousand Acres.

Horse lovers will recognize a kindred spirit in Smiley, herself a horsewoman. But this novel isn’t just about horses: Though horseracing is at its center, its storylines delve deeply into people’s lives and personal struggles, exploring their relationships to horses, each other, and themselves.

Smiley is an elegant writer of effortless, flowing style who is, by turns, poignant, heartwrenching, and funny. But don’t plan to tackle this read unless you’re serious about it: Like a horse, this 561-page novel requires a hefty chunk of time and a healthy dose of patience. Take a look at the "cast of characters" Smiley provides at the beginning of the book and you’ll get an idea of what you’re in for. Each of the nearly 50 trainers, owners, horses, and assorted other characters listed has a story to tell, taking readers from racetracks up and down the East Coast to California and abroad.

Horse Heaven is not one neat, cohesive story, but rather a conglomeration of stories. Characters emerge, only to disappear for chapters. Some stories intertwine, and others do not. It’s a lot to keep track of, but Smiley’s characters are so well developed and engaging that the effort is worthwhile.

Readers are treated to a multitude of perspectives, from the people who train horses to the people who love them to the people who use them as tax write-offs. Smiley’s sharp, intelligent depictions hit the mark — right down to the ruminations of Eileen, a Jack Russell terrier. She even takes us inside the heads of the horses themselves.

And there’s no question that Smiley knows horses — their mannerisms, their way of being in the world, and their interactions. When a gelding named Justa Bob returns to a racing barn after a long layoff, Smiley describes his arrival:

"He hadn’t seen another horse in a long time, and now he was among them, signals flying everywhere. He whinnied a single loud greeting, and other whinnies answered him immediately, Hello, hello, hello, I’m here, I’m here, too, hello, a ripple of whinnies spreading from Barn C out over the backside, until, far away, they had nothing to do with Justa Bob at all, only to do with Hello, I am here, where are you, I’m here, too."

With a sense of reverence, Smiley explores the mystery of what horses experience —whether they think and love, how they learn and communicate.

And Smiley gives her readers an intimate sense of the horseracing world. She captures the uncertain, precarious nature of horseracing, the sadness and tragedy as well as the glory, and the truth in the saying, "Anything can happen at the racetrack."

Horses themselves are, paradoxically, both integral and incidental this world. On one hand, the racing industry extends so far beyond the animals as to be an entity in itself, built on money and prestige. The horses, as living, breathing individuals, become expendable.

Racehorse owners often know little about their own animals (beyond whether they’re winning) and even less about horses in general. Some horses don’t have owners at all, in the traditional sense; they are commodities that are owned by syndicates and divvied up into interest shares. They are investments, moneymakers. Horses that run in "claiming" races switch hands from one trainer to the next, passed around like so many live poker chips.

Smiley shows us the hard side of racing, in which horses are drugged, used, and ultimately asked to sacrifice themselves to human whim.

But she shows us the other side of the coin, too — what some might call the romantic side of horses. She understands a little girl’s natural-born love and affinity for the animals, explores the mysterious bond — can it be called love? — between horse and human.

Joy, a horse manager, contemplates Mr. T., a former racehorse: "What Joy made of him was simple innocence and love, a horse to ride into the world upon though the world frightened and dismayed her, a beloved and reassuring large presence."

Smiley’s words will ring true to anyone who knows what it’s like to be unexplainably, irrevocably bitten by the horse bug.

Horse Heaven is a thoughtful, mature, and imaginative novel that is well worth your time, if you’re up for the ride.