Horse: A Novel is a work of historical fiction by Geraldine Brooks published in 2022 by Viking Press. It is a sprawling tale covering multiple generations that integrates three storylines set in mid-19th century, the mid-20th century and the early 21st century. Those storylines involve thoroughbred racehorses, the artist Jackson Pollock, slaves, and osteology. All of these elements integrate seamlessly to tell an all-encompassing story about an actual racehorse name Lexington. While not exactly at the level of fame attained by Seabiscuit or Secretariat, Lexington does hold an especially impressive place within the pantheon of thoroughbreds.
It is the story of Lexington's legacy as one of the most impressive studs in the business that form the backdrop to the narrative and unites the multiple plotlines and wildly divergent historical periods. From 1861 to 1874, Lexington ranked at the number position as the sire of the most successful racing horses of those years. This is not a simple constricted story of a single defining race or year of racing that gives a story like Seabiscuit a natural storytelling arc. The novel is complex, densely plotted, and packed with many important characters, many of whom have no interaction with the others. In other words, Horse: A Novel serious literature rather than a rousing adventure story that is typical of novels with a horse at the center of its tale.
The story opens with a scene involving the computer of a Georgetown student in 2019. Two chapters later and the reader is suddenly thrust back to antebellum Kentucky where a black man named Jarrett is more properly referred to as Warfield's Jarret because he is a slave owned by a family named Warfield. There is no contextual transition between the opening chapters set in the present and the thrust back in time. This element is just one of the structural components of storytelling that some readers may find confusing. The language also occasionally relies heavily on scientific, artistic, and horse training jargon. The style of composition is straightforward, with no introduction of unusual narrative devices, but it is important for any reader coming to this novel with expectations built upon its title to know that Horse: A Novel is not a typical horse tale.
Ultimately, the story is less about the title character than it is about the lost contributions to American history made by those with black or brown skin. The novel is steeped in in history, but it is still a novel. That is part of its point and a big reason why the official title includes the categorization. Many of the stories of contributions to American history by minority citizens cannot be told as straight biographical non-fiction. Too often such stories are not fully known. Gaps must be filled in. While the line between fact and outright fiction has been relentlessly blurring since 2017, among serious authors there still remains a resistance to confusing myth with history. The result of stories that should be told but can't be told as pure history is this type of fiction heavily invested in fact. Horse: A Novel tells a story too complex to easily summarize. In doing so it illuminates the difficulty among those who still recognize the line between big lies and little truths remains too important to casually sacrifice.
