Nicholas Evans, author of The Horse Whisperer, died at the age of 72 after suffering a heart attack.
His literary agency revealed today that the best-selling novelist, screenwriter, and journalist died unexpectedly on Tuesday. ‘United Agents is extremely sorry to report the tragic passing of the acclaimed best-selling novelist Nicholas Evans, who died suddenly on Tuesday this week suffering a heart attack, aged 72,’ read a statement posted this morning.
The Horse Whisperer, which was released in 1995, sold around 15 million copies worldwide and was the number one best-selling book in 20 countries.
Evans’ first book depicts a complicated and brilliant trainer who is recruited to assist a wounded adolescent and her horse recover from a catastrophic accident.
Because of its success, the novel was adapted for the big screen three years later by Hollywood icon Robert Redford, who featured as the eponymous character, alongside Scarlett Johansson in her breakthrough role as young rider Grace MacLean.
Annie was portrayed by Kristin Scott Thomas, while Robert was played by Sam Neill. Dell Publishing agreed to pay $3.15 million USD (£2.1 million at the time) for the film’s North American rights.
He graduated with first-class honors from Oxford University after being born in Worcestershire in 1950.
He began his career as a journalist for the Newcastle Evening Chronicle before transitioning to television.
Evans created videos on US politics and the Middle East for Weekend World, a current affairs program.
By the 1980s, he was working for London Weekend Television, making documentaries for The South Bank Show on Sir Laurence Olivier, Francis Bacon, and David Hockney.
However, when living in the south west of England, he met a blacksmith and learnt about horse whisperers, who are said to be able to rehabilitate traumatized horses.
The concept evolved into the best-selling book, which has now been translated into 36 languages. In an interview with The Daily Mail in November 2020, he stated of the book, ‘Usually, writing a novel is like climbing a mountain: it’s hard and laborious, and you may easily get lost.’
‘However, with The Horse Whisperer, the plot was set out in front of me like stepping stones over a river.’ I just had to put one foot in front of the other.
I realized I was telling an ancient form of story – the kind that humans have been telling one other for millennia.’
It’s about nice individuals being thrown into a horrible whirlpool of suffering. Finally, a kind hand reaches in to save and clear them. Consider the angel who saved Daniel from the lions’ cave.
‘I won’t divulge anything more for the benefit of those who have yet to read the book. All I’d add is that it’s not a horse novel. It’s about ourselves, and how simple it is for all of us to get lost, muddled, and removed from what really matters.
‘And how, if we are fortunate, pure and unselfish love may rescue us.’
Evans said on his website regarding the film adaption that he did not believe the second half of the film ‘worked.’
‘Although I believe Robert Redford did a fantastic job with the horse work and the overall aesthetic of the film (and, of course, the acting was fabulous), I don’t think the second half of the movie really worked,’ he remarked.
‘It got a little lost.’ I don’t believe they ever got the screenplay perfect before they began filming, and once you start, there’s never enough time to improve it.
‘In my view, the finale entirely missed the purpose of the novel.’
He went on to create four more books, including The Loop (1998), The Smoke Jumper (2001), The Divide (2005), and The Brave (2007). (2010).
Evans and his family were unwell in 2008 after having a near-fatal response to the poisonous webcap mushroom, which they mistook for innocuous ceps.
Following the tragedy, the author, his singer-songwriter wife Charlotte, and her brother and sister-in-law all developed renal failure and required dialysis.
After almost three years on the waiting list, Mr Evans was rescued when his only daughter donated him one of her kidneys in a live donation. Evans, then 61, claimed his daughter’s donation last July at Hammersmith Hospital had given him his life back.
Evans had collected the mushrooms from his brother-in-13,000-acre law’s Scottish Highlands estate, fried them, and served them to his family.
While living with his brother-in-law, Sir Alastair Gordon-Cumming, and his wife Lady Louisa, he had accidentally harvested a crop of lethal webcaps.
He gave them to his wife Charlotte and the guests for supper after sautéing them with butter and parsley. They were all admitted to the hospital the next day.
‘I brought the mushrooms back to the home, showed them around, and the overall remark was, “Fantastic!”‘ Nicholas stated in an interview after the event.
‘So I diced them and sautéed them with butter and parsley.’ They were eaten outdoors by four adults. They were somewhat bitter, but Alastair and I ate a lot of them, whereas the two ladies did not.
‘Fortunately, none of the four kids [Nick and Charlotte have a six-year-old son, Finlay, and their hosts had three] wanted to try them.
‘Doctors informed us afterwards that the mushrooms would have killed them if they had.’
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