HORSE 

Geraldine Brooks

 My good friend Cindy chose this book for our book club.  

I didn’t ask her why she chose this book, but knowing her, I would guess it was because she loves animals, art & history. 

Horse is a true story of long buried facts and the ugly truths of horse racing, racism, art, greed, slavery, betrayal & ego.  The narrative goes back and forth in time from the 1800’s to present day.  I think I would have enjoyed the book so much more if the present-day portion of the book had been eliminated entirely. 

I opened the book and the very first paragraph is: the deceptively reductive forms of the artist’s work belie the density of meaning forged by a bifurcated existence.  These glyphs and ideograms signal to us from the crossroads freedom and slavery, White and Black, rural, and urban.

What?  I kept running into words I had never even seen before…for example: deshabillement, ferruled, addlepated, obduracy, subfusc…uh…standby while I go grab my dictionary.

The novel begins present day, Jess is an osteologist. I heard you just ask yourself…what does an osteologist do?  Without going all Geraldine Brooks on you, I’ll keep it simple.  It is someone who studies bones. 

Jess finds the bones of the greatest racehorse of all time.  Theo, a Nigerian American, is studying the art of horses as his PhD dissertation.  He digs a painting of a horse out of his neighbor’s trash which over the course of several chapters he finds out it is a very valuable piece of art.  As you may have guessed…this turns into a love connection and their story has a tragic ending.  In fact, this tragic ending of the story is the last 20 pages, and it ruins the book for me. 

Jarret, a slave on a southern plantation, finds his soul mate in Lexington, the GOAT of horse racing.  He has a short-lived racing career due to an unusual bone growth which causes him to become blind.  His career as a racehorse is over and then he is deemed the GOAT for being a stud sire.  To this day, people pay thousands of dollars for horses with Lexington’s bloodline.

I was fascinated by the thoroughbred, Lexington and Jarret who loved him.  That horse was his life. I don’t know anything about horse racing or raising a horse.  But after reading this…I feel like I have read the ugly underbelly of equine and greed in the industry.    

Overall, Brooks delves into the depiction of southern America slavery and the real heroes of the racing world back then…the black horseman. Racism played a central story in the lives of Lexington and Jarret; how could it not also play a role in the story of our modern protagonists? Combining the story of a legendary racehorse in the past with racial injustice that was rampant then, with the racial injustice that is still present now.  Jarret’s story colliding with Theo’s over generations, however, both as targets of racism in completely different times and circumstances.

Horse is so much more than a fascinating story about a racehorse.  It is a powerful story of history, the anatomy of Kentucky horse racing and breeding…the burial and rebirth of art and most heartbreaking…the reality of the victories and defeats of racism.  There is a lot of sadness in these pages…but there is also ambition, hope and the greatest of these…. love. 

Overall, I loved the book until I didn’t.