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https://theconversation.com/geraldine-brookss-horse-is-a-richly-detailed-examination-of-the-violence-of-americas-past-183112>
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Review: Horse – Geraldine Brooks (Hachette)
In a letter accompanying the advance copy of her latest novel, Pulitzer Prize
winner Geraldine Brooks reveals the inspiration for
Horse.
The author was propelled into the research for this masterly work by a chance
conversation with a staff member from the Smithsonian Museum regarding the
fastest, most celebrated American racehorse of the 19th century:
A horse so fast that the mass-produced stopwatch was manufactured so his
fans could clock times in races that regularly drew more than twenty
thousand spectators. A horse so handsome that the best equestrian artists
vied to paint him …
Brooks offers a richly textured, intricately developed narrative about that
magnificent horse, his trainer, the artist who painted them, and those who
restored the skeleton of the great creature in a museum many years later.
She refers to these elements as the “factual scaffolding” for her novel. As the
reader discovers in the potted biographies of a dozen or so historical figures
Brooks has provided, the scaffolding is a robust and complex structure.
Indeed, this is a novel that explores and exposes real historical figures and
actual conditions, events and forces. These are animated through Brooks’
exquisite character construction. Horse deftly reveals the long-term effects of
history, depicting the continuities of the brutal treatment of African
Americans in the United States during the era of slavery and its deadly
manifestations today."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
