Heather Lewis was born in Bedford, New York and attended Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of three published novels. The first, House Rules (1994), details the experiences of a fifteen year old girl working as a show rider of horses-an experience the author herself had in her teenage years. Lewis's second novel, The Second Suspect (1998), follows the struggles of a female police investigator trying to prove the guilt of a powerful and influential businessman responsible for the rape and murder of several young women. The third, posthumously published novel, Notice (2004), describes the experiences of a young prostitute, Nina and her involvement wit Librarian note: It's a really dark, lonely sort of book. I don't know how to explain what I mean. It just left me sort of lost- but her writing was really good. The fact that nobody has any deeper biographical information from her.. It's like she's faded away from history. It took me a long time to find out what I know about her, from bits and pieces. Nobody else seems to think about her anymore.

It's a deep and dark story, and what makes it work is the mystery of the show-jumping world. Not all of us are familiar with it, so there's a certain elusiveness. The story truly conveyed emotion and pain- when I read about the abuse Linda and Carl set their horses through, an example being a car battery used on a water jump, it gave me a very lonely and discomforting feeling. This book only makes me wonder- was there really someone like this, people who did this, and if so.. what happened to them? The situations are so odd that they feel real to me, but Heather can't answer these questions for me now. I wish she could. She does an excellent job of exploring the line between pain and pleasure in her work, and the relationships of those who walk it.urn:oclc:37246883 Scandate 20111208100831 Scanner scribe5.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) I wish we hadn't lost touch in the madness of our early twenties, but that's what that age is all about - breaking free and realizing your own self.

The rest of the story passes with scenes in hotel rooms, stables, schooling rings. Abuse and drugs, over and over again.. it's a cycle that never ends, and the author wants you to experience this cycle.. and how it feels to be trapped within it. Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9701 Ocr_module_version 0.0.10 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000168 Openlibrary_edition Rumors circulate about the Ruskers doping their horses, but Lee finds out there's more to it than just business. A relationship begins between Tory and Lee after she signs on with the Ruskers, yet it is unhealthy and painfully ruthless. Linda, who is also Tory's ex-lover, becomes involved with Lee later on and subjects her to even more sadistic treatment. The sex is always rough and unsexy in this book, but it's visceral. Very raw and unflinching. Clearly, though, true affection and love are more painful to Lee than the fisting that Tory and Linda subject her to. NOTE: I didn’t include any plot spoilers, but if you’re a “less I know the better” kind of reader, I would wait to read any further.**

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Although the book is powerfully honest and brutal I had problems more with the writing and character development. I suppose it just takes time to get used to how Heather Lewis wrote her novels. I admire the way she laid Lee's emotions and entire life bare for the reader to witness. It's just at the end of the book I didn't really feel like I knew Lee at all. And the entire world of show horses is completely unknown to me. I understand Lewis knew about it well and she certainly was able to show that through her words. I just wasn't able to picture any of the scenes in my head that contained the horses, which was a important thing to Lee. urn:lcp:houserules000lewi:epub:7ff4901d-899e-42b1-9dba-6bdb829b3705 Extramarc Columbia University Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier houserules000lewi Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t81k0jc73 Isbn 9781852424138

Lccn 93025614 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL1416092M Openlibrary_edition Next, we have a lot of unanswered questions about some main characters: Carl is alleged to be married, but we never hear of the wife, any history of the wife, other than 2 references. Even when the main character, Lee, stays with them in between shows, the wife is never even alluded to, but many other characters have their stories and history laid out up front. Confusing. A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact. I think the part I find troublesome is the graphic sex—which is not about passion, but about pain. I understand why this was introduced, but after awhile, it does get old—and I would feel the same about heterosexual sex. To me, I always found sex in a book to be a filler when someone’s main story wasn’t strong enough. In this story, yes, it has purpose, but the extensive way it’s described over and over again, you sort of start to say ‘ok, is this it?’ In the beginning, it’s purpose was highlighted, but as we progress in the story, it just starts to work like a broken record. Obviously these incidents impacted on the writer, who wrote this obviously from experience. But, I feel it was to hide a greater feeling and emotion and story. Which is a shame. In the early 80's we were coworkers, neighbors, and cohorts. I would have loved to have seen a book by her about those times, as she could clearly speak of them better than I could. It would've been an amazing trip down memory lane of a time when she, my girlfriend and myself were the oddest kids in the sleepy little town of Mt. Kisco, NY. Hi may have to to write it myself.Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-01-11 05:01:42 Boxid IA40031909 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2011-08-23 18:04:50 Boxid IA142422 Boxid_2 CH111901 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Donor The entire story—while compelling—left me feeling empty and kind of confused. The sex was clearly perverse, but…what the hell? Was it an alternate form of cutting (which was all the rage when the book was written)? I could hardly tell what was even happening most of the time, except it involved a whole lot of fists/hands and violence, and it hurt (so good?). It certainly wasn’t erotic in any way. Nobody seemed to LIKE each other—where did the perverted sexual “need” come from? The book begins with the narrator, Lee, facing expulsion due to being caught with pot and a bunch of boys (sound familiar?). As a result, she has nowhere to go but doesn't want to go home to a father who sexually abuses her and a mother who helps him do it. Lee manages to travel to the horse circuit after making her friend repay a drug debt, and on her way there, she is molested by a man who is her seatmate. Through this we begin to see how Lee copes with the way others treat her. Her girlfriend, Tory, is also very obviously a victim. Another thing that killed me was that under different circumstances these characters could be so happy, they could heal each other and be happy young lesbians in love, but they’ve experienced so much trauma that the only way they can interact with each other is through violent sex and drugs. It’s got the hopelessness of a true tragedy, to the point that you almost become accustomed to the tragedy by the end of the book and you’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that there’s just about no hope for these characters.

Lccn 95069748 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL819130M Openlibrary_edition But tho’ the sex in House Rules is not all that erotic, this book excels other novels about young athletes in the erotics of extreme competition. You can almost feel you’re in the saddle with Lee & smell the horse lather. Amber Dermont hadn’t a clue how to do that with dingy sailing in The Starboard Sea. Even Yonahloosee Riding Camp - tho’ belonging to a higher level of literature - doesn’t take you over the jumps with Thea Atwell as Heather Lewis lets you ride with Lee. The only thing I’ve read recently that matches this in sheer intensity is the chapter in Dare Me where the Sutton Grove cheer squad elevate Beth Cassidy for what is expected to be the culminating 2-2-1. (Beth, we recall, was also an equestrienne as well as a cheer captain.) My experience with hunters & jumpers is entirely second hand. My world was sailing; but both riding and yachting satisfy some of our highest aspirations, demanding skill, intense competitiveness, dedication, physical endurance, & courage in the face of danger. In both we adapt to the demands of beautiful, unpredictable, & often expensive, @ the top echelon extremely expensive indeed, partners - horses or yachts. Which makes riding and sailing traditional pursuits for the rich. But by no means exclusively. Horses need riders & yachts need crew & both require a lot of maintenance & there are many young people in particular who would offer their whole lives to riding or to sailing - whose entire net wealth fits into a duffle bag. If that choice of life ever appealed when you were young (I’m gazing wistfully @ my old yellow seabag), you’ll find you share a lot with Lee. As Aristotle pointed out long ago, we enjoy good representations in fiction of things we would not enjoy at all in real life, whether Oedipus stabbing himself in the eyeballs, or in Lee’s case, what it would feel like to mount a horse after being fisted. I cannot imagine wanting to be a bottom, but can see in being a sexual passive a form of misplaced spirituality, a wrong turn in the path to what Ignatius designated as the third level of humility - perfect identification with Jesus’ suffering. But tho’ some of the blurb descriptions of this book make it sound like a work of Lesbian S/M erotica, I did not find that @ all. The sex scenes seemed more descriptions of extreme unarmed combat or OTT hazing @ a very bad fraternity or military school. The very heavy drug use in the novel represents a Dionysiac spirituality, as in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. (I’d known from my hospital experience the Dilaudid was the good stuff, but now I know why & that you can use it to control both horses & riders.) Like some other favorite characters, Lee is both extremely tough and very vulnerable. She doesn’t know how to recognize or repay generosity, yet she has an enormous capacity to endure abuse while retaining her personal dignity.

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The book also shows us a network of adults who are too interested in passing judgement and making money to care about the treatment of the horses and riders, and women’s reputations take a much bigger hit than their male peers who are doing just as much (usually more) depraved stuff. This all adds up to a perfect storm for poor Lee to get trapped in an unsafe dynamic, even without the copious drugs she’s being given. Her writing style encompasses everything I love and revere in a writer - a simple, heartfelt honesty that is the hardest thing to achieve. Sex, drugs, abuse—yes, that’s the darker side of the horse industry—any walk of life to be honest. We choose what we want to be a part of, even if you have had a life that created the spiral. The key element is what choice to you want to make. And that is where House Rules gets it. The main character starts to realize where she is, what is going on and the ending, which if this is a real experience, I’ve never heard of this happening, comes to a very real and sobering reality.