Talking Horses And Retired Journalists

Husband-Wife Team Publishes New Books

Forge Road was aptly named. Two hundred years ago it was home to the Buffalo Forge, the second largest iron forge in Virginia.

But it’s been many years since a cast iron pot was made on this winding road in the southern part of Rockbridge County. Now, it seems, the main industry comes from words, not iron.

Four writers who live on or just off Forge Road have recently published novels. Maybe it’s time to rename Forge to “Writers Way,” they say.

Jane Harrington, who teaches creative writing at Washington and Lee University, is the author of “In Circling Flight,” published in 2022, and the upcoming “Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance.” Brian Richardson, a former head of W&L’s journalism department, published his novel, “A Place You Can’t Escape,” last October.

And now, the husband-andwife writing team of Jody Jaffe and John Muncie have just published their latest novels. Jaffe’s “Commander Speaks” is a mostly funny look at the horse show world, but it also shines a light on the two biggest problems in equine sports — predatory behavior and horse abuse. Muncie’s “The Royals” (cowritten with Ron Kolb) is a mystery starring five retired journalists who find relevance (and love) while investigating what they think is a murder.

“We joke that there’s something in our water, other than high levels of calcium, that encourages people to write,” said Jaffe, who is the author of the Nattie Gold equine mystery series featured in People Magazine. Jaffe describes her newest equine mystery, “Commander Speaks,” as Mr. Ed meets Agatha Christie who join forces with an animal communicator to solve a murder at the Virginia Horse Center. The book is set in Rockbridge County and includes many scenes describing the area’s beauty.

“It’s a love letter to the place I consider paradise,” Jaffe said. “And of course it’s also a love letter to horses, since I am a bonafide horse addict.”

It was horse fever that landed Jaffe and Muncie in Rockbridge County 21 years ago from Silver Spring, Md. They’d just finished raising two sons and co-writing two novels together, “Thief of Words” and “Shenandoah Summer,” under the pen name, John Jaffe. Jaffe’s lifelong dream was to see her horses from her living room window.

Mission accomplished — and more. Not only can she see all eight of them from her living room window at what they call Finally Farm – on a gravel road off of Forge -- she can see them from her dining room table because their barn is attached to the house.

“Yes, I have a very understanding husband,” Jaffe said with a laugh. “But it wasn’t much of a hard sell for us to move to Rockbridge County once he saw the views here.”

Said Muncie: “We were looking for horse property in Charlottesville and we were priced out. Then Jody said, ‘Years ago I showed my horse at the brand-new Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, and I remember how beautiful it was there.’ She was right. We took a drive over the mountain and never left. These views, what can I say?”

Jaffe has plenty to say about them in “Commander Speaks.”

“What elevates Lexington to a must-see stop are the Blue Ridge Mountains,” she writes, “providing views so magnificent that on any given day, many a tourist — and local — can be seen snapping photos of the echo of ranges that change color from pink to purple and back to blue.”

Jaffe also celebrates the deep bond between horse and human in “Commander Speaks.”

“Though there is a romance between two humans in my book,” Jaffe said, “the real love story is between the horse, Commander, and Izzie, the animal communicator he talks to.”

Yes, a talking horse. Commander is a German show jumper recently imported to the U.S. He won’t stop biting his new owner, a successful mystery writer. She hires an animal communicator to find out why. That’s an easy fix. Not so easy to fix are the crimes Commander is witnessing at his barn that he insists be stopped immediately. This unlikely trio — the horse, the animal communicator and the mystery writer — sets out to solve the murder of one of America’s most despicable horse trainers.

“Commander Speaks” is mostly a funny look at the Hunter/Jumper world, said Jaffe, who’s been competing in that world for the past 40-plus years. “How could a book starring a talking horse be anything but? But the jokes stop when Commander and his crew take a hard look at predatory behavior and horse abuse in equine sports.”

Jaffe wrote the book because a young friend was molested by a well-known horse trainer. After the girl reported him to the regulatory agency, Safe Sport, Jaffe saw many people in the horse show world support the trainer and excoriate the girl.

“I expected blowback from tackling such difficult subjects in ‘Commander Speaks,’” Jaffe said, “but so far, the reviews have not only been positive, but thankful for bringing these problems to light.”

Such as this from horse magazine The Equiery: “Even though this is a murder mystery with an unsettling topic, the book is humorous and engaging, but somber when it needs to be. Jaffe calls out the hypocrisy of the horse world that pretends to love horses but goes to obscene lengths to get the desired results.”

Jaffe said proceeds from “Commander Speaks” will be donated to Type 1 Diabetes research because her family has been affected by this autoimmune disease.

Since moving to Rockbridge County, Jaffe and Muncie have worked as visiting journalism professors at Hollins University, W&L, and Randolph College. Between teaching jobs and running their horse farm, Jaffe is a mosaic artist who’s shown her work locally. Most of her mosaics feature horses, though she’s been known to veer into cats and fish.

“I make mosaics, because, yes, it’s fun to smash plates. Very cathartic,” Jaffe said. “But mostly because I love the notion of taking broken parts and making them whole again. I love the metaphor of mosaics — separate we are small pieces, but together we tell a greater story.”

-Muncie worked as the intern coordinator at W&L’s journalism department for 12 years and for five years wrote the “Pilgrim at Poague Run” column for the Rockbridge Advocate. His favorite column was about the cycles of life, much like the theme of his novel, “The Royals.”

“It was a beautiful day to die,” begins the column, about the euthanasia of George, an older horse who could no longer stand. It ends this way: “George was 26 when we accompanied him up that hill. Not young for a horse but not aged either. As I walked to the barn afterward, there was Jules, looking in through an open stall door. Eyes bright, hair still curly across his back, two months old. If the cycles turn as they should, I’ll be lost long before him.”

Both Jaffe and Muncie have backgrounds in the newspaper world. As a feature writer for the Charlotte Observer, Jaffe was on a team that won the Gold Medal Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its Jim and Tammy Bakker coverage. Muncie spent more than 35 years as an editor and writer for such papers as The San Diego Union-Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun.

Muncie’s newspaper past led directly to “The Royals.” Both he and his co-author, Ron Kolb, began their careers within two weeks of each other at the Press-Enterprise in Riverside California. Kolb was a rookie sports reporter; Muncie was a rookie news editor. Their first collaboration was as the Press-Enterprise’s pop music critics. The paper was happy to run their weekly “Turntable” column of news and reviews. And equally happy not to pay them anything extra.

Ever since, said Muncie, the two have talked about writing a book together. And talked and talked. “Finally, three years ago, we met Ron during a trip to Florida. Of course, we started talking about our invisible book. Jody stopped us with an exasperated look and said: ‘Stop blathering and start writing.’”

, page B4 Three years later, “The Royals” was born.

Given its parentage, it’s not surprising that “The Royals” stars retired journalists. Bestselling author Paul Levine called it “Geezer fiction at its best, laced with sly observations, wry humor, and wise meditations on aging and the meaning of life.”

While the book is about finding, and fighting for, relevance in the retirement years, it’s also a paean to what Muncie calls “the golden age of newspapers,” the 1970s and ’80s.

“Reporters and editors of that era were driven by responsibility to our readers and the truth, not money,” said Muncie. “We worked in smoke-filled newsrooms, crammed into tiny cubicles and behind communal desks. We banged out stories on manual typewriters and were constantly serenaded by ringing dial phones.

“Newspaper people of those days were smart and funny, irascible and profane,” said Muncie, with a smile. “We all wanted to be the next Woodward or Bernstein or Ben Bradlee. The newsroom energy was electric. A daily adrenaline rush. Ron and I couldn’t let that era be forgotten.”

Or as Muncie and Kolb write in “The Royals”: “For a giddy moment, I felt like I’d just stepped out of an A.M. news meeting at the News & Times. We weren’t a gaggle of duffers leaving the Sidecar; we were reporters and editors swirling around, ready to track down the perpetrators, to ferret out the truth. Interviews! Deadlines! Headlines! Presses rolling! Let’s face it: I was feeling a zap of electricity, too.”

Like “Commander Speaks,” “The Royals” also pivots on love. But not just the love of a profession that both Muncie and Jaffe say is a “calling more than a job.” Two of the Royals rekindle a love from 40 years past, proving that the one that got away can, in fact, be the one you get later in life. Because if anything, Muncie says, “The Royals,” is about living fullest till the end, till “the cycles turn as they should.”

Both “Commander Speaks” and “The Royals” are available at Downtown Books in Lexington, and on Amazon: To contact Muncie or Jaffe, send an email to [email protected].