The Mare

The Mare is a 2015 novel by American author Mary Gaitskill. The story focuses on a young Dominican girl, Velvet Vargas, who moves to upstate New York to live with a white couple for a few weeks and her encounters with a horse, Fugly Girl, at a neighboring stable. The novel was partially inspired by Gaitskill's own experience hosting a child with the charity Fresh Air Fund and Enid Bagnold's 1935 novel National Velvet. The novel received primarily positive reviews.