Author of The Horse Whisperer found runaway success with dramatic debut

NEW YORK • Nicholas Evans, the British journalist-turned-author, whose novel-turned-film The Horse Whisperer broke publishing and movie records, along with the hearts of readers who made the book a bestseller in 20 countries, died on Aug 9 at his home in London. He was 72.

The cause was a heart attack, said his long-time agent, Mr Caradoc King.

In 1993, Evans, at 43, was broke and adrift. He had been working as a journalist and documentary film-maker, and began casting about for an idea for a novel.

It was perhaps not the most winning formula for global success, as he noted in retrospect on his website: "Why would a debut novel from an unknown author have any more chance of getting off the ground than a movie?"

Yet he had found an intriguing subject: the mystical, manly art of horse whispering.

Evans' source was a farrier and he soon learnt that the vocation of calming horses had a long history stretching back centuries.

He sat down and wrote some 150 pages of what would become The Horse Whisperer, a soapy drama about a young girl and her horse who are hit by a truck, and what happens when her hard-driving magazine-editor mother finds a horse whisperer in Montana to heal their trauma.

Evans showed his draft to Mr King, who sent the partial manuscript to a number of publishers.

Suddenly, Evans was in the middle of a bidding maelstrom, juggling offers from Hollywood as well as from book publishers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hollywood Pictures and Robert Redford's film studio, Wildwood Pictures, won the bid, at the time the largest amount ever paid for the rights to a first novel - almost US$6 million (S$8.3 million) in today's money.

Evans' North American book advance, of US$3.15 million from Dell Publishing, set another record.

The book, which was published in 1995, was a global bestseller that was translated into 40 languages, though critics slammed it for its melodrama.

The movie, which came out in 1998, was more favourably reviewed and became a modest box-office success, thanks to Redford's star power and firm hand as director.

Nicholas Evans was born on July 26, 1950, in Worcestershire, in England's West Midlands.

He studied law at Oxford University, graduating with a First, the highest honours.

He worked as a journalist for newspapers and television and produced a weekly current affairs show.

He followed The Horse Whisperer with three more novels, all bestsellers.

Evans' survivors include his second wife, singer-songwriter Charlotte Gordon Cumming, and four children.

NYTIMES