GIRL, GROOMED

Odell discusses the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her childhood riding instructor in this memoir.

After a second round of couples therapy with her husband, the author realized that many of the problems she’d experienced stemmed from her failure to thoroughly confront her past—specifically the sexual abuse she suffered from Clarentine, a riding instructor at the Ivy Creek Stables where Odell began riding at age 10. She recalls Clarentine making sexual jokes that she didn’t understand, both to and about her, almost immediately after she arrived: “Needing to pretend to be sexually savvy while protecting myself against my own vulnerability became a coping tactic. Strategies like this started impinging on my nervous system. The grooming process had officially begun.” Odell also recalls Clarentine’s callous physical abuse of the horses in order to “break” them (including a brutal scene of castration), as well as his attempt to bribe Odell into having sex at age 15 with the promise of being able to ride her favorite horse at all of the shows that summer. (Clarentine’s inappropriate behavior with all of his riding students remained an open secret among the girls.) The author, now a therapist herself, maintains a calm tone throughout the memoir in spite of the deeply upsetting events she describes. Her desire to please Clarentine even after she moved away to college—going so far as to visit him in prison after he murdered the father of one of his students—may be difficult for some readers to understand, but Odell articulately explains the emotional hooks that he placed in her (and so many others). The author also effectively ties in her current problems, especially those in her marriage, with her past traumas. Odell’s emotional breakthrough at the memoir’s conclusion will likely prove truly inspirational to readers, whether or not they have personally experienced similar trauma.

A powerful, quietly moving memoir of abuse that encapsulates one woman’s incredible resilience.