Horse: A Novel [B0788]

2022 HCDJ in nice clean condition. "Horse isn't just an animal story-it's a moving narrative about race and art." -TIME. Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award.

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse-one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A well-crafted story that varies between different time periods and characters. I never thought about the articulation of animal skeletons before reading this book! The horse-training and horse-racing sections kept me eagerly turning pages and reminded me of reading "The Black Stallion" books as a child. The book deals soberly with the horrors of slavery and the never-ending vigilance required of Black men in American society. everyone ought to read this book!"; "Wow!!! What a book. The narrative was truly eye opening to horse racing and the politics of it in the 1800's. The author did an amazing job of mixing fact and fiction to tell an amazing story of Lexington, the greatest race horse. Of course I love the sprinkle of art history thrown in too."