Horse

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

A Pulitzer Prize winner weaves a vast tale of spirit, obsession, and injustice throughout American history from the fragments of a forgotten picture in a garbage pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in history.

1850s, Kentucky. A bay foal and its enslaved groom, Jarret, create a friendship that will propel the horse to victories that break records throughout the South. An itinerant young artist known for his drawings of racehorses takes up arms for the Union when the country explodes in civil war. He meets up with the stallion and his groom again on a dangerous night far from the glamour of any racetrack.

1954 in New York City. The owner of a gallery known for taking chances with daring modern artists, Martha Jackson, develops an obsession with an oil painting from the nineteenth century depicting a horse that has an enigmatic history.

2019; Washington, DC. A mutual interest in horses leads Jess, an Australian scientist at the Smithsonian, and Theo, an American art historian from Nigeria, to unexpectedly become friends. One is studying the stallion's bones to find clues about his strength and endurance, while the other is researching the forgotten history of the Black horsemen who were crucial to his racing success.

Horse is a novel about art and science, love and devotion, and our unfinished business with prejudice. It is based on the incredible true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington.