Horse by Geraldine Brooks

 

This is the story of the best racing horse in American history and the people obsessed with him over the years.  In 1850, Lexington was born.  He was given to a free black man who worked for the owner and his son, Jarrett, still a slave, formed an indivisible bond with the horse.  Although Lexington was given to Jarrett's father, the stable's owner sold the horse and Jarrett as well.  Jarrett stayed with Lexington for the horse's entire life and through his racing career.  

Back then, paintings were done of the horses on the racing circuit as photography had not advanced well enough to capture them.  Such a painting was done of Lexington and a famous art collector in Washington D.C. found the painting in the 1950's and purchased it.  It was passed along after her death and eventually thrown out in a pile of discarded garbage on the street.

There a Nigerian-American art historian named Theo found the painting and rescued it.  He went to the Smithsonian to have it restored as he was writing an article about various things there.  He met Jess who was Australian and headed up the area that worked on skeletons.  She had just discovered that the Smithsonian had Lexington's skeleton and was working on it so it could be exhibited.  The two started a relationship but it ended in tragedy.

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian author who writes historical fiction.  She won the Pulitzer Prize with her novel March which followed the father of the Little Women girls to his time in the Civil War.  In this book, she follows Lexington's racing career while using it to highlight the evils of slavery and the perils that still attach to race relations.  The book has been nominated for various prizes and readers will be fascinated by the history.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.