In a long section, she delves into Allmon’s upbringing in Cincinnati, showing us his mother, Marie, struggling with a chronic illness and inadequate medical care, his mostly absent and feckless Irish father, and other white characters who appear either as scolding coaches or prison wardens.

The influence of another Ohioan, Toni Morrison, is at work in these rich, angry pagesĪt this point, Morgan proves her nerve by crossing a literary divide between white writers and the black characters they may seek to describe. Their family struggle develops sinister overtones, and the larger mechanism of Morgan’s drama kicks into gear. Families and novelistic karma being what they are, when it comes time for Henry’s daughter Henrietta to defy him in turn, it will be not professionally – she is as fascinated as Henry is by horses and genetics, blood lines and evolution – but by getting involved with an African-American groom, Allmon Shaughnessy, which causes shudders of generations-old race-hatred to convulse her jealous father. “There is no need for improvement, Henry, only adherence to a line that has never altered, because it’s never proven unsound.” The story that unfolds will reveal the faults in that Forge line, and an unsoundness at its very heart.Īfter his father’s death, Henry converts the property into a flourishing horse farm, with the aim of breeding a future winner from the great Secretariat. “I won’t have you throw everything away for a heap of rhinestones,” rages Henry’s father, when his son blurts out his dream.

The Forge family are corn famers: in the opening section, hot-headed young Henry Forge, classically tutored and prone to trading arguments in Greek or Latin with his tyrannical father, develops a rebellious ambition to transform their farm one day into a thoroughbred breeding business. In the maximalist stakes, Morgan’s novel is a muscular, confident entry.įor the first 200 pages, the book appears to be a conventional multigenerational saga set in the American south.

Along the way, Morgan wrestles with subjects including the history of Kentucky, slavery and its legacies, the iniquities of American healthcare, Darwinism, geology and relations between the sexes. Shortlisted for the Pulitzer and now the Baileys prize, Morgan’s epic work builds to a climactic series of dramatic race scenes featuring a star filly named Hellsmouth. T his novel is about horse racing the way Moby-Dick is about a whale it has a similarly expansive scope, spiritual seriousness and density of grand themes.

The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan