Horse by Geraldine Brooks

With Horse, Pulitzer-prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks takes the reader on a journey from the stables to the race tracks, with much of the book set in the years leading up to the Civil War. The book is based on historical events. The racehorse Lexington was real, his skeleton part of the Smithsonian collection in commemoration of his outstanding career, though over time his story was forgotten and his bones labeled simply “Horse.” 

Jarrett, too, was a real person, depicted in a painting by artist Thomas Scott, another character in the book. Sadly, details of Jarrett’s life are lost to history, so Brooks based his story on those of other enslaved African-American horsemen, trainer Ansel Williamson and the jockey and trainer Edward D. Brown.


Intertwined with this story line are more contemporary ones. Theo, a Georgetown University graduate student in art history meets Jess, an Australian-born osteologist who studies bones collected at the Smithsonian. The two start to piece together the history of the racehorse, the bones, and the paintings of Lexington and the Black man at his side. With their relationship, Brooks explores issues related to race in the present day. There’s also a minor thread centered around art gallery owner Martha Jackson, who was friends with Jackson Pollock and other Modernists but whose collection unaccountably contained an older painting of a horse and his trainer. 

While the multiple storylines and shifts in time are, for the most part, well done, the heart of the book is the relationship between Jarrett and Lexington. Theirs is the plot thread I found myself wanting to return to. His work with Lexington, one of the greatest racehorses of all time, affords Jarrett some privileges despite his enslavement, but small favors can never take the place of actual freedom. 

Geraldine Brooks combines solid historical research with gifted storytelling. In her more than capable hands, Horse is a book the reader will never forget.  Moon Lake Community Library will have a copy of Horse available for checkout in later this month.

I received a pre-publication copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

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