While Milk Horses is first and foremost a memoir, it is also the tale of a writer who knew she wanted to be a writer at an early age. She struggled to do so with little encouragement and with scant mentors who, on the surface, could hardly be called champions. Miss Gostelow, Newth's piano teacher, was one such mentor. True to the humanity evident throughout the memoir Newth, however, saw Miss Gostelow as a "person of strength." The final chapters answer the questions posed in the beginning of the memoir: Where is the young author going and how is she going to get there?