WINNER of the 2021 Los Angeles Book Festival Wild Card

WINNER of the 2021 New York Book Festival Wild Card

"BLIND PONY is a memoir about overcoming-about facing up to and learning from one's past without being imprisoned by it." - David Herman for IndieReader

"Hart's powerful debut, a gritty memoir rife with graphic details of abuse and triumph over it, will break hearts." - Publisher's Weekly

When your mother names you after your father's affair, you might wish you were living someone else's life.

For Samantha Hart, growing up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania had been no childhood idyll but rather a violent, surreal nightmare. A twisted vision of pastoral life part Faulkner part Dante. At fourteen years old, she ran away in search of her father, a character she only knew as Wild Bill. Discovering he wasn't the hero she dreamt he'd be, she was on her own.

Arriving in Los Angeles at the peak of LA's decadence where money, drugs, and good times flowed, she floated through a strange new world of champagne-soaked parties, high-stakes backgammon tournaments, and a whirlwind of international escapades flogging nude photographs. When a wealthy playboy mistakes her Pittsburgh accent for being British, it begins a spiral of white lies leading Sam to question everything she thought she knew about herself and who she could be.

Blind Pony is a story of healing and hope, a coming of age narrative intersecting themes of recovery, redemption, forgiveness, and the struggle it takes to define life on your terms.