HORSE
Geraldine Brooks, Hachette, $39.99
Brooks’s new novel blends real and imagined characters. Two scientists – Catherine, from the UK, and Jess, from Australia – meet at the revered Smithsonian Institution in Washington. They will soon join forces to reconstruct the skeleton of Lexington, America’s most famous racehorse, sire to more winners than any other horse.
Their fascination with the topic leads them back to the 1850s, when Jarrett Lewis was Lexington’s guardian, soulmate and trainer. He was a slave embedded in a weird blend of legendary Southern charm and stark inhumanity. Jarrett’s meekness and humility were ground into him, but the abolition of slavery is looming.
In the present day, Theo, the son of Nigerian diplomats, finds a painting of Lexington and Jarrett by artist Thomas J. Scott, who in the flashbacks explains succinctly to
