Machine Without Horses: A Novel

“One of the best—and most wonderfully experimental—historical fiction titles of the year. . . . Truly spectacular.” —Toronto Star

What is an ordinary life worth?

A seasoned writer stumbles across an obituary and imagination is sparked. The brief words of memoriam describe a woman who was both extraordinary—eccentric, revered in her field, a renowned expert—but also utterly ordinary. How does a writer, intrigued by all that isn’t said, create a story, or capture an unknowable woman and all the secret passions, choices and compromises that make up a life?

In Machine Without Horses, Helen Humphreys explores the real life and the imagined internal life of the famous and famously private salmon-fly dresser Megan Boyd, a craftswoman who worked for sixty years out of a bare-bones cottage in a small village in the north of Scotland. Humphreys, both present in the story and its architect, reveals with her inimitable style the complicated emotional landscape that can exist under even the most constant surface.