Well researched and written.

I loved the sections in the book about horses and historical fiction. It was well-researched and interesting. I loved the present love story intertwining with the past. However, the last BLM chapters felt forced and could have used some rewriting. I understand what she was trying to do, but it needs work.

Horse, Geraldine Brooks, author; James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, Katherine Littrell, Michael Obiora, narrators
Spanning part of three centuries, this novel features the lives of a slave, Jarret, beginning from around 1850, and an accomplished student with a very bright future as an art historian, Theo, from about 2019. Both are black men, both are hard working, but obviously both are from very different walks of life, and both had lives with unexpected endings.
Jarret was the son of a man who was once a slave. He had, however, bought his freedom and continued to work training horses for his former master. Jarret often worked alongside his father, Harry Lewis, and he grew to prefer horses to humans. Jarret was present for the birth of a horse named Darley and later called Lexington. From that day forward, he never wanted to leave her side. He remained with her for most of his life, even as he was being sold and moved around like a chess piece with the horse.
Theo, was a PHD student who was privileged. His parents were diplomats. and he received a fine education in Europe and the United States. By all accounts, a model citizen, he gave most people the benefit of the doubt and was on his way to achieving a successful career and a happy life. The trajectory of both Theo’s and Jarret’s lives, are a study in contrasts.
The author has exposed a part of history that is little known. As she marries fact and fiction, many interesting facts are revealed, like Mohammed Ali was originally named after Cassius Clay, who was a White Republican, an abolitionist, and also a slave owner. He rejected the name. Also, I did not know the history of the horse racing business and was not aware that there were very accomplished black trainers and jockeys who never achieved the acclaim due them, nor did I know that they were forced out as others replaced them when they were emancipated. Was it racism or simply better skill that was behind that? Was it economics? The story showed the contradictions that existed in the lives of the characters, the slaves and the free, the rich and the poor, the male and the female.
This White author has been accused of appropriating another culture. I wondered, as I ventured into criticizing part of her presentation, if I would be attacked as unfair for finding the novel one-sided. It is not racist to believe that the novel only presented one side of the issue of race, it is reality, but the cancel culture is real. I decided that my freedom of speech had to be the most important consideration, so I wrote my review honestly and freely.
Brooks has exposed the underbelly of historic racism. However, the characters are drawn almost as caricatures of their real life counterparts. Some of them seemed unnaturally without flaws, while others seemed to be decidedly defective, just to show the contrast they faced in conflicting situations. White people, Republicans and Conservatives were presented as oppressors, while the Democrat was almost always unconditionally praised. Sometimes this one-sided message was overt, sometimes subtle, but it always lurked between the lines. As the author appeared to blame the entire prevailing issue of systemic racism on White Conservatives or anyone associated with Republicans, even former Presidents, I felt there was a distortion of facts. There should have been mention of the South that was ruled by the Democrats, who were against the Civil Rights Act, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to approve it. They also created the KKK. Senator Byrd, a leading and the longest serving Senator rode with the hooded terrorists and was praised by Senator Schumer, a long-time Democrat and Senate leader. African tribes actually aided and abetted the early slave trade with England, which led to slavery in the United States and elsewhere, even the Caribbean Islands. Tribes captured other tribe members, ripping them from their families and enslaving them. Later on they sold them to the English. Absent that, it might never have occurred. Who knows?
Knitting the fact and fiction together, Brooks tells the story of the horse-racing industry, and the unusual and incredibly, important influence that slaves had upon its success. Often, they were both the brains and the brawn making the horse a winner and the business profitable. They were also responsible for the successful breeding of future champion thoroughbreds. I looked up other famous horses, like War Admiral, and wondered if the racing industry would ever return to the glory of its heyday or if these slaves would ever get their due.
?
In spite of the one-sided approach, the book is very interesting and well written. Brooks created a story about a slave who could have been Lexington’s trainer and groom, and as she does, she exposes the abuse of the animals, the abuse of the slaves that cared for them, rode them and trained them, and the lack of appreciation for those human beings or horses.
As the story of Theo unfolds, he finds a painting of a beautiful horse with a Black groom, supposedly Jarret, in the giveaway trash of a neighbor. He decides to write a thesis on the history of art depicting Black men and their relationship with horses, to point out society’s failures and perhaps improve the understanding of history and the relationship of different races to each other. The story begins only a few short years before the emancipation, when the times were especially tense with conflict and war preparations, and continues until the present day.
Nothing excuses slavery, nothing can justify it. but today the black population of non-descendants and descendants count many superstars. There was a black President, there is a black Vice President, there are black Supreme Court Justices, there is a sizable contingent of blacks in Congress, so the playing field has improved tremendously. I found the conclusion of the book to be disappointing. It could have been a teaching moment, but instead, immediately reacted with blame. Sometimes there are mistakes in judgment that have nothing whatsoever to do with racism and sometimes it appears that the cry of racism is a knee-jerk one meant to divide and conquer the rest of us.
So, I highly recommend it, but with a codicil…it is not fact, it is truly fiction, and the one-sided approach may serve to stoke further racism, not prevent it, as it advances the author’s Progressive point of view and political perspective, rather than illustrating a better way forward.

Brooks' newest novel Horse is something a reader doesn't just read, but absorbs. It is so thought-provoking in its timely narrative, uncomfortable themes and historical topics. Her dedication to the research for this book is obvious as she takes the reader to antebellum South and the horse culture of the time and the enslaved black men who cared for, groomed, and loved the horses in their care and then in present day Washington DC, where Theo, the son of Nigerian-American diplomats, is pursuing his PhD at Georgetown in art history. Theo's parents have been moving all over the world in their roles, so Theo has spent much of his youth in boarding school in England, where he was usually only one of a few black students. He is a kind man who tries to lend a hand if someone is in trouble as we see when Theo watches as an elderly white woman tries to manage a walker and groceries up her stairs. When he goes to help her, her discomfort in his touching her is palpable as the author describes her facial reactions to his being there. One day, in a pile of tossed out belongings from her house at the curb, his artist's eye notices a painting of a horse which he takes. The painting is old and dirty so he finds his way to a contact he has in the art restoration department of the Smithsonian. It is there, he meets Jess, an osteologist, who is researching the skeleton of a horse from the 1850s named Lexington. She is formally from Australia and has made a name for herself in this institution setting bones and displays of all kinds. It is through this shared interest that Theo and Jess becomes friends which later turns into more. Their relationship is cautious at first but eventually finds its footing. There is a brief moment after their first meeting that Jess mistakenly thinks that Theo is stealing her bike only to realize he has one just like hers and she knows that her reaction might have been due to his skin color for which she is horrified that she would jump to that conclusion.
The reveal of Lexington's bones is an easy segue to the 1850s when Harry Lewis and Jarret are introduced. This father and son are enslaved on the Warfield Plantation but Harry is a trusted groom for the estate's notable horses and he is teaching his son Jarret all his skills. Because owning strong fast horses was an obsession during that time, racing them was as well and it was a national preoccupation. Having knowledgeable and talented caregivers was a requisite and this job fell on black horsemen. This role often allowed for an elevated status of the enslaved and in Harry's case, allowed him to buy his freedom and that of the woman he loved. Unfortunately, that did not include his son so Jarret was bought by a variety of horse owners. Jarret was there for the birth of Darley whose sire was a successful racing horse. Darley is nurtured and trained by Jarret and after making a name for himself in a race, is sold to Ten Broeck and renamed Lexington along with Jarret who knows the animal better than anyone. The bond that forms between trainer and horse is a remarkable one and lasts throughout the horse's life. And it is one where kindness and care is all that matters, not color. This will not be the last time that Jarret and Lexington will be sold on the whim of their white owners.
It is the art work of this famous horse that perseveres over time. When the famous artist of the day Edward Troye is unavailable to paint Lexington, Thomas Scott is commissioned to do the rendering. Scott had studied medicine but gave it all up to paint. Later, during the Civil War, he would enlist as a company doctor. In a famous work, the horse is joined by two black groomsmen, who the author imagined were Harry and Jarret. Scott and Jarret intersect in various places in the book.
A limited appearance of Martha Jackson, who in 1954, opened a modern art gallery in NYC. That in itself would make a great book because a woman owned business in that time period was unheard of. But since she came from a famous and wealthy family, she was able to put enough money together on her own to do so. She had an eye for talent and one of those was Jackson Pollack, to whom she would later sell her convertible to buy two of his now famous works to hang in her gallery. She would also buy the painting of a horse which would hang in her home to remind her of her equestrian mother. This painting would later be discovered as Lexington, the most famous horse of the antebellum south and most successful sire in history whose offspring would become famous in their own rights on prestigious racetracks throughout the country.

The story is based on real and imagined people and many of the events happened. Brooks writes seamlessly, moving from voice to voice, year by year as she relates the life of Lexington and the growth of Jarret, in skills and mind. She titles the chapters based on the voice telling the story like Jess, Theo, Thomas Scott, and Martha. But it the voice of Jarret which is the most disturbing as she titles his chapters as "Ten Broeck's Jarret", "Warfield's Jarret" and "Alexander's Jarret" because he had no say in his own life. It is only the last of his chapters, after the war, that he is Jarret Lewis.
Jarret's life as a black man, what he had to endure as an enslaved person, is still reflected today in Theo's world. As a student, he was called derogatory names like Caca and Sooty, despite his intelligence or prowess on the school's polo fields and he can't even help out an old woman with her groceries without bigotry. Despite this, what he tells Jess he will do with the painting shows his true heart and goodness. So it is the horrifying scene when Theo is running with his dog Clancy one night, that hate and racism becomes as clear as glass.
This is such an intelligent, layered read, full of historic information yes, but also one that will challenge your emotions.

a. x. C. CD a

Interesting