Kinney has brought to life an amazing cast of characters. A "novella in verse," The Fall of Heartless Horse combines elements from ancient Scottish sagas, songs, legal documents, new age literature, and interviews. This startling, inventive debut, which draws on traditions of both poetry and prose, and pushes the envelope in both genres, has been compared with the works of Lewis Carroll and Anne Carson, and evokes qualities of opera, theatre, soap opera, epic, and melodrama as well. Richly detailed, containing both the tender and the bombastic, notes on a grand scale and tinges of intimacy, this soaring, energetic, one-of-a kind text explodes different forms, gutting and reanimating them. There are spontaneous bursts of humor, as well as deeply affecting passages dealing with loss, jealousy, family ties, ruthlessness, sibling rivalry, survival, and the difficulty of finding one's place in the world.