Thomas McNeely was named a Dobie Paisano Fellow in 2000, and has just published Ghost Horse, the novel he began during that fellowship. It's largely autobiographical, focusing on an eleven-year-old boy growing up, as McNeely did, in mid-1970s Houston. That was a time of great transition and social tension in Houston; McNeely remembers it as a time when society made it, "after a certain age... not okay anymore" to be friends with kids of other races.
Buddy Turner, the protagonist of Ghost Horse, is feeling himself pulled by outside forces away from his longtime best friend, Alex Torres. Between that and his parents' impending divorce, Buddy's in a difficult and transitional period at a young age.
Art helps Buddy cope with his circumstances -- he and his friends are working to create an animated Super 8 movie about the titular Ghost Horse. And as he learns more about his past, he starts to discover what he considers the "real movie," the truth about his own life.
