Horse

After reading Horse (#1,207), I am reminded of why Geraldine Brooks is one of my favorite authors.  In it she interweaves several stories: a painting of a thoroughbred horse discarded in a curbside pile; Theo, the art student who discovers it and is determined to track down its provenance; Jess, the manager of a lab at the Smithsonian Museum who helps him and is tasked with helping a British researcher with a skeleton in the Smithsonian attic; and Jarrett, the enslaved boy who grows up with the horse and bonds with him indelibly.

The horse, it turns out, is real.  Lexington was one of the finest thoroughbreds ever raised and raced in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.  He sired many prize-winning horses, including Preakness, for whom one of the Triple Crown Races is named.

It's also the story of racism, both before, during and after the Civil War, as well is in the contemporary love story.

The story does jump back and forth in time, and the plot is presented from many points of view.  I found it absolutely fascinating.  I've always had an interest in horse racing, but I learned so much in reading this book that it made me realize just how little I did know.  It's a piece of American history not many know about.

Since I had to read it for my book club, I couldn't wait for the hard copy book to become available to me, so this is the first novel I've read on my Kindle.  Was I ever grateful for the dictionary function built into it as I encountered lots of unfamiliar vocabulary!  

This was a great book on so many different levels.  It provided plenty of fodder (pardon the horsey pun) for book club discussion and was a universal hit with my group.