Review

Horse is a stunning success. It is charming, informative, insightful, educational and entertaining. It is an exceedingly deft portrait of horse racing and race--both currently and a century and a half ago, pre-Civil War. It is also a marvelous exposition and explanation of equestrian anatomy and art. In accomplishing this captivating story, the author's characters are vividly drawn and compelling, particularly a young Black boy as he progresses to and through his coming of age. He is an especially appealing young man, a boy who understands and communicates better--much better--with horses than with people. Brooks' incisive perceptions on race are illuminatingly persuasive: "All manner of misfortune can come of a Black man and a White man in the same room with a knife, even if no drop of blood is spilled." The young slave boy thinks; "He was pleased to know that good things had been said of him...[but]...Being noted wasn't always safe. The tallest cornstalk could be the first one reaped. What if he became too valuable? What if Warfield sold him off?" And in one of so very many astonishing wisdoms comparing horses and men (slaves): "...valued, no doubt, but living by the will of their enslaver, submitting to the whip. Obedience and docility: valued in a horse, valued in an enslaved human. Both should move only at the command of their owner. Loyalty, muscle, willingness--qualities for a horse, qualities for the enslaved." In part, the novel is also a series of fascinating lessons on horses themselves, equine anatomy, the construction and re-construction of animals, especially horses, and their physiology: "Mares had the capability to slow birthing so that the foal would have the dark hours to find its feet and be ready to run from a predator by dawn." And more: "Ribs, the protective embrace of them, how they hold delicate organs in a lifelong hug. Eye sockets: no artisan had ever made a more elegant container for a precious thing." And to acknowledge just one more thoughtful benefit of this book, its exposition on equestrian art: there is often a groom or a jockey, or both--included simply to aggrandize the horse itself. "The horse towers over the human, with a great arcing crest and a disdainful eye, just as the owners probably liked to see themselves in relation to the rest of the world." One additional feature of this extraordinary book is that Geraldine Brooks has paid splendid attention to local dialects and vernacular speech; as a consequence, much of it transports the reader to a different time and/or place--or both--with its charming authenticity. Horse will transport you to a different time; then bring you current with nuanced parallels, evocative events, sentiments and relationships. This novel is an unqualified triumph--much like winning the Triple Crown, and doing so with such abundant strength, grace and beauty that you want to be along for the ride: Saddle Up!

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