Horse (Geraldine Brooks, Hachette) 

Four decades after covering horse racing as a cadet reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, award-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks has returned to the track. Her latest book is based on the true story of Lexington, America’s greatest racehorse—a beast so fleet-footed that he inspired the invention of the mass-produced stopwatch and became the subject of several paintings. One such painting is the novel’s narrative linchpin, anchoring the multiple timelines that dramatise Lexington’s life and legacy. In present-day Washington, DC, PhD student Theo rescues the abandoned artwork from a kerbside; his interest in its provenance sharpens when he meets Jess, a Smithsonian scientist who’s discovered Lexington’s articulated skeleton stored in a museum attic. In 1850 Kentucky, Jarret, an enslaved groom, witnesses the birth of a foal with four white feet; boy and horse are later captured in a painting by artist Thomas J Scott. As Jarret forms a bond with Lexington and helps transform him from playful colt to record-breaking athlete, the rumblings of civil war begin reverberating across America. Brooks’ deep empathy as a novelist and her ability to make the past feel as tangible as yesterday make Horse more than the story of a remarkable thoroughbred—with its richly rendered characters and seamless interweaving of past and present, it adroitly captures America’s ongoing struggle with racial injustice and the complex relationships between humans and animals. In the words of one character, ‘a new horse is all promise’—and Brooks’ new novel is a promise fulfilled. 

Carody Culver is senior editor at Griffith Review and a freelance writer. 

Category: Reviews