Horse by Brooks Geraldine
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.
