Brooks’ chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling.” —The New York Times Book
Review Horse isn’t just an animal story—it’s a moving narrative about race and art.” —TIMEA
thrilling story about humanity in all its ugliness and beauty . . . the evocative voices create
a story so powerful reading it feels like watching a neck-and-neck horse race galloping to
its conclusion—you just can’t look away.” —Oprah DailyWinner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award · Finalist for the Chautauqua
Prize · A Massachusetts Book Award Honor Book A discarded painting in a junk pile a skeleton
in an attic and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands a Pulitzer
Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit obsession and injustice across American
historyKentucky 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of
understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the
nation erupts in civil war an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the
racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night he reunites with the stallion and
his groom very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City 1954. Martha Jackson a
gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters becomes obsessed with
a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington DC 2019.
Jess a Smithsonian scientist from Australia and Theo a Nigerian-American art historian find
themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the
stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance the other uncovering the lost history of
the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. Based on the remarkable true
story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington Horse is a novel of art and science love
and obsession and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
