Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle Presentation — Horse: A Novel, by Geraldine Brooks

Kentucky, 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 19th-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 — a finalist for the 2023 Chautauqua Prize and the winner of a 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award — is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

Geraldine Brooks is the author of nine books, five of which — Horse, The Secret Chord, Caleb’s Crossing, Year of Wonders and March — have been named as CLSC selections. For March, Brooks was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Her work as a journalist includes time at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. In 1990, with her husband Tony Horwitz, she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. The following year they received a citation for excellence for their series, “War and Peace.” In 2016, she was named an Officer in the Order of Australia.

This program is made possible by The Stephen and Edith Benson CLSC Endowment.