Horse

Australian author Geraldine Brooks, who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for her novel March, leavens the history of the great American Thoroughbred Champion Lexington in 2022’s Horse. She wields the imagination of a brilliant novelist, bringing alive historical figures about some of whom a fair amount is known, and about others, almost nothing. Given her subject matter, it is entirely appropriate that she deals at such length with the American race issue: her protagonist, Jarrett Lewis, spends the bulk of the novel an enslaved Black man. The chapters illuminating his imagined life succeed better than the 20th- and 21st-Century sections, which in comparison, feel clunky, cobbled a bit hastily.

Yes, the deep trust and loving rapport between show more the horse Lexington and the slave Jarrett form the heart of this book, and provide nearly all its charm. Jarrett’s father Harry is an exceptional trainer in his own right, and has earned enough through an arrangement with his owner, Dr. Warfield, to purchase his own freedom. Jarrett is present when the colt, originally named Darley, is born, and Harry sees the relationship between it and his son grow and flower, and he knows well enough to leave them to it.

Darley is renamed Lexington in honor of the area of Kentucky from whence he hails, and begins to race in 1855 at five years of age. Jarrett is devoted to the young horse, and he ends up training him into America’s greatest Thoroughbred of all time. His racing career is cut short because of failing eyesight (due to an infection), but his stud history will likely never be matched. I invite you to look him up. Jarrett struggles under the yoke of slavery, in which he controls nothing about his life, but is fortunate to be able to live with and work with the horse who loves and trusts him, through the horse’s entire life.

Brooks captures horses in Horse. She imagines their herd mentality and their personalities quite convincingly. I think it’s brilliant, because I don’t know better. I have, however, spoken extensively to people who have spent a lot of time around horses (and not just after reading this book), and everything in the book on this subject rings true. This book is also part horse advocacy: clearly American Thoroughbreds are raced too young, and abused horribly in the process. The other overarching theme is American race relations: slavery and the onset of the Civil War occupies much of the book; Brooks brings this up to date for the 21st Century with a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Black man.

The narrative of Jarrett and his horse took my heart and made it soar. The contrast between that and Jarrett’s relationships with the slaveholding class strikes me as brutal, and one of the chief points of the story. And Brooks avoids depicting the slave owners as cardboard cutouts; as a group, they are more merciful and generous than was probably the norm. The author spends considerable effort on the histories and provenance of paintings of the great stallion; this was necessary for the design of her book, but as I said above, to me it fits ill with the balance of the story. Overall though, a very worthy read.

https://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2022/07/horse-by-geraldine-brooks.html show less

On a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, I spotted this on a Buy 1 Get 1 table. The author's name was familiar, I knew she'd won a Pulitzer for March—a book I've attempted to read more than once but have never gotten very far. I knew that she also wrote nonfiction, even recently publishing a memoir about grieving. (I also thought she wrote poetry, but that's because I'm an idiot who didn't realize that Gwendolyn and Geraldine are NOT the same G Brooks.) But the description mentioned art and the fastest horse in history and I was like, OK, I'll give Geraldine another chance.

This book has everything I love: art, multiple perspectives, non-linear structure, and history mixed with current events. I love a book that feels like we're (me and the show more author) putting together a historical puzzle, like in Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. The history of a winning racehorse as the puzzle to solve brought in even more recent interests: the Smithsonian (The Feather Detective) and horses (Pony Confidential, Moo).

Recently, I've avoided the 1800s in America because the books showed the violence; I understand the horror without having to read it in detail (I abandoned The Sweetness of Water at the halfway point and will never go back). This book doesn't gloss over the atrocities enslaved people endured but I am grateful it did not go into great detail. My imagination can fill in the blanks—I do not need even more horrors roaming around the pathways of my brain. Even the 2019 narrative reminded me that we can't escape the atrocities committed by my fellow white folks every single damn day.

Overall, I loved this book and appreciated it even more when I read the author's note at the end describing the real people depicted. I think I need to find more horse books for adults...maybe in my 40s I'll become a horse girl. show less

Horse - Geraldine Brooks
5 stars

Not another split timeline historical book. The thought was making me feel tired. I’m not interested in horses and I find horse racing somewhat abusive. However, I’ve enjoyed 7 of this author’s previous books. I trusted her to make it work. She did. This may be the best book I’ve read all year.

I listened to some author interviews. In one of them, Brooks described the timelines of this book as being ‘braided’. That says it perfectly. I loved People of the Book in which the timelines connected like linked short stories. In this book, the stories complimented each other. They were entwined in a way that was balanced, each story supporting the others. The pages turned easily. I will admit to show more skimming the pages of the actual horse races, but the horse, Darcy/Lexington, was an endearing character. With a book like this I usually prefer the historical timeline. However, I was completely hooked by the backdoor look at the research areas of the Smithsonian Institution in the contemporary plot of this book. (I love the National Mall and its museums. This book made me want to schedule a visit.)

I did enjoy the historical trivia of this book. (How did the articulated skeleton of this famous horse end up collecting dust in a Smithsonian attic ?!?) But, I realized right away that historical trivia and even horse racing were not the most important aspects of this story. This is a book about race, racial discrimination, racial atrocity, racially impelled violence. I felt Brooks did something very well in telling the stories as she did. She showed that there was really no ‘split’ between the the antebellum, slave holding 19th century story and the 21st century story. The timelines are braided and so are the scars. If there was only one book that I could recommend for book club discussion this year, it would be this book.

I started with the audiobook and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the multivoiced production. I switched to text less than a third of the way through the book. It deserved my full attention and occasional rereading of key points. show less

In the 1800s in Kentucky, Jarret lives with his horse trainer father, Harry Lewis, on Warfield's horse farm. All three are excited about a new foal, Darley (later renamed Lexington), who shows great promise. Jarret, who is enslaved, trains him to victory, but Warfield sells the horse out from under Harry - and sells Jarret with him, to Ten Broeck in Louisiana.

In the near-present, white Australian Jess works for the Smithsonian. She finds a horse skeleton in an attic for an English researcher, and their quest intersects with that of Theo, a Black PhD candidate at Georgetown, who has found a painting of a horse in his neighbor's junk pile.

In New York in the 1950s, Martha Jackson, who collects and sells contemporary art, buys a painting show more from her housecleaner, Annie: the painting, of famous racehorse Lexington, has been in Annie's family for generations.

These three stories, and more (including the diary of the painter), are woven together over the years, through the Civil War and up to the present, where racism again has tragic results for one of the characters.

Quotes (large-print edition)

Life did seem to him to work like that: contrariwise. (Jarret, 26)

"My way of thinking, a good horse has no color. It's what's inside that's worth the fret." (Harry Lewis, 30)

How could we be so creative and so destructive at the same time? (Jess, 69)

"I might as well be dead, if this"--he lifted both hands, palms upward, in a wide, all-encompassing shrug--"if this is how living gone be." (Jarret to Mary Barr Clay, 172)

"That is the world as it is. If you do not like it, join me in attempting to change it. Otherwise, keep your peace." (Cassius Clay to Mary Barr, 183)

Even as his world contracted and pressed in upon them, in equal measure his heart expanded. (Jarret, 233)

Any notions he'd had about natural inferiority had long ago been rasped away by the evidence of his own experience. (Gilpatrick, 405)

"You chose a side, you also chose an enemy." (Jarret, 431)

As I began to research Lexington's life, it became clear to me that this novel could not merely be about a racehorse; it would also need to be about race. (Afterword, 551) show less

“...a racehorse is a mirror, and a man sees his own reflection there. He wants to think he’s from the best breeding. He wants to think himself brave. Can he win against all comers? And if not, does he have self-mastery to take a loss, stay cool in defeat, and try again undaunted? Those are the great qualities of a great racehorse and a great gentleman.”

“Only horses were honest, in the end.”

“You have to know that bigots are unwittingly handing you an edge. By thinking you're lesser than they are, they underestimate you. Lean on that. Learn to use it, and you'll get the upper hand.”

This is a story about Lexington, the greatest American racehorse. He was also a racehorse that very few people know about. The novel follows show more several different timelines from 1850 to 2019. Lexington’s beginnings as a promising colt, with a fine bloodline, being groomed to be a fierce competitor. The story is also about slaves and ex-slaves who worked as horse trainers and were incredibly gifted. Another historical fact, that has been lost. A very ambitious book, meticulously researched and beautifully written. Brooks is a horse lover and you can see it on every page. show less

Geraldine Brooks has done it again: written a transcendent book that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Brooks is a must-read author for me, but Horse was made even more special by my teenage racehorse madness years. I read every book I could get my hands on about Thoroughbred racing and its stars. My mother indulged my obsession: when she went to Kentucky on a genealogy trip, I got to overdose on racehorses, meeting greats like Citation and actually seeing the grave of Lexington, the horse that Brooks centered her book upon.

In Brooks' Afterword, she says, "As I began to research Lexington's life, it became clear to me that this novel could not merely be about a racehorse, it would also need to be about race," and she does this show more in masterful fashion. Whether it's watching the years pass and Lexington's groom being known as one owner's Jarret after another to-- finally-- having his own name untainted by slavery (Jarret Lewis) or watching the unfolding relationship between the interracial couple Jess and Theo in 2019 and the differences in their experiences and outlooks on the world, the reader becomes totally engaged in the characters' lives.

Horse is so much more than a fascinating animal story. It is also a powerful story of art, science, and-- above all-- race. It is a story to take in deep. It is a story to remember show less

You don’t have to love, or even have any interest in horses, to appreciate and enjoy this historical fiction, of which Geraldine Brooks is a most skilled practitioner. Here, she has three concurrently running stories - the most admirable racing and stud horse Lexington and his devotee Jarett, enslaved in Kentucky; modern day researchers and lovers Jess and Theo, working to piece together the art and science of Lexington and the artists who painted Jarett with his horse; and art gallery owner Martha Jackson, daughter of a renowned equestrian mother. As the decades fly and then retreat, from the Civil War to the 1950s to our current day, the reader becomes emotionally invested in the fates of all the characters, and a devastating show more tragedy near the end is just one in a series of injustices perpetrated against men, women, and the most dignified and lovable Lexington. Although book banners may disagree, this novel, for its carefully researched history and heart, belongs on the same shelf as Laura Hillenbrand's beloved Seabiscuit, as a perfect novel for teens and adults. show less