SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Pony is small and the color of the sun. But Pony has been passed from small hand to small hand, given as a gift on Christmas, then sold when the happy child grows too tall. He's been dressed up as a unicorn, confined to a stall and now Pony has had it.
CHRISTINA LYNCH: (Reading) I am a pony, but not just any pony. I am a pony who is bent on revenge. I am the Iago of ponies, a furry fury. I am both adorable and devious. And until I get what I want, I'm going to make every human I meet pay for your collective crimes. I am a tiny, mop-topped demon, and I am coming for you.
SIMON: Oh, that's chilling. What's Pony's problem?
LYNCH: (Laughter).
SIMON: "Pony Confidential" is told by a pony who's been hurt in life and sets off on a quest to find his long-lost first owner, Penny, who's now a mother and teacher accused of murder, and only Pony can clear her name. "Pony Confidential" is the new novel from Christina Lynch, who joins us from KVPR in Clovis, California. Thank you so much for being with us.
LYNCH: Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
SIMON: And we should make clear from the first. Pony is a pony - right? - not a horse or a mule?
LYNCH: He is a pony. He is very much a pony. They are genetically the same as horses, but they're smaller in size and often come from breeds that are always smaller in size.
SIMON: I don't believe I've ever asked a novelist this question before, but what drove you to make the pony the detective?
LYNCH: (Laughter) It didn't start out as a mystery. I was teaching world literature, and one of the texts that the students and I really fell in love with was "The Odyssey." And during the pandemic, my pandemic pal was my large pony, Floraa. And I started to think about what the lives of ponies are. And, you know, we all sort of have that moment in our childhood when we say, I want a pony. But what is the life of the pony, right? So just started thinking about the mixture of "The Odyssey" and a pony. I know that sounds really crazy (laughter).
SIMON: No, I - well, it winds up being delightful. Could you tell us about Floraa, your pony?
LYNCH: (Laughter) Sure. She's a half Welsh pony, half Arabian, so she's a little bigger than a pony like the pony in the book. And I've had her for about six years. And about four years of those were about winning her trust. So ponies, and especially pony mares, female ponies, you can't force them to do anything they don't want to do. You have to kind of set up a bond of trust and then ask nicely. And if you have really forged that bond of trust, they will always say yes. But if you haven't, oof, God, help you.
SIMON: And I want to understand Pony's, you know, mentality. What does he see as our collective crimes, the collective crimes of our species?
LYNCH: There are many in the eyes of the pony, at least at the beginning of the book. But the big one is that we don't really value our animals. We don't see them as having emotions, that we just see what they can do for us and how they make us feel without thinking about how they feel.
SIMON: Pony feels hurt by Penny, the one little girl that he truly loved, and yet he still has feelings, doesn't he?
LYNCH: He does. You know, at the root of hatred, do we always have love, perhaps? Because he cannot let go of the idea of this one little girl that he really felt joy with who then in his memory of the event, just up and sold him without an explanation. So he wants that explanation, and he's been holding onto that for about 15 years when the novel begins.
SIMON: Much of the novel, Penny is behind bars. It's irresistible not to think that Pony is confined, too, in a way, isn't he?
LYNCH: Yes, I did develop that parallel. And that sort of opened the door to exploring, well, what has Penny been doing for these years that the pony hasn't seen her? And the accusation of murder and all of that. But I really was interested in the idea of the people in our society who are treated - let's face it - like livestock.
SIMON: Yeah.
LYNCH: People who are in prison.
SIMON: Is there a subtext about our legal system, too? Because you can't help but notice that Penny's case always is delayed.
LYNCH: Yes. I had long conversations with a friend who's a public - retired now, but a public defender. And she talked to me a lot about the cases that she saw and the delays in the system. I'm also a college instructor, and a lot of students either have families who work in the prison system in this area or have family members who are incarcerated. So I've also heard a lot of personal stories about the kinds of delays that can really upend someone's life.
SIMON: There's lots of talking animals in this book. It's sophisticated pattern. I mean, almost as if they were at the Algonquin Round Table.
LYNCH: (Laughter) That's a great compliment. Thank you.
SIMON: No, I meant it as a compliment. You know, but at one point, for example, a dog cautions the pony, remember your microchip. They're going to bring you back here and again in a Sisyphean circle.
LYNCH: (Laughter).
SIMON: Is that credible animal talk? I mean, what would they know?
LYNCH: Well, if you think about, you know, novels from the animals' point of view. They're always holding a mirror up to us, right? We can't ever really know, as the epitaph says, we can't ever really know what an animal is thinking. But we also really struggle to know what each other is thinking. So no, it's not really meant to be a credible, realistic animal story. It is definitely meant to make you laugh and think.
SIMON: I should explain. We have a French poodle who writes Haiku.
LYNCH: (Laughter).
SIMON: So I am - I'm sympathetic, you know? And I'm our French poodle's interpreter.
LYNCH: Of course. Of course.
SIMON: Yeah. I don't want to spoil anything in this charming story, but is it also a love story?
LYNCH: Yes, very much so. It is the story of the love, and that love comes in many forms, right? And the love between a person and their animal as you experience with your dog. It's very profound. And imagine if your dog got lost and you had no way to find her, what you would be feeling and what she would be feeling in that moment. And anyone who says that that is not love does not understand what love is.
SIMON: Christina Lynch's new novel "Pony Confidential." Thank you so much for being with us. Our best to your pony.
LYNCH: (Laughter) Thank you so much.
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