If the idea of a long novel about horses and horse racing has all the appeal of an afternoon at a seedy OTB outpost, read on. For Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven (Knopf; 561 pages; $26) turns out to go down quite easily--more like a pitcher of mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby. Smiley, who has already given us an epic about Greenland, an academic comedy set in the Midwest and historical fiction about abolition, has as great a range and as much intellectual curiosity as any novelist writing today. In her latest book, she takes on a fresh topic and once...
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