HORSE

Horse made many top book lists for 2022, including President Obama's. Therefore, even though I had never read Geraldine Brooks before, I felt compelled to read it.

The book is seemingly about horse racing, but the deeper subject is race. Brooks tells the story of multiple characters who live during a span of 180 years. This narrative arc gives the reader a much better sense of American history - about how far we have come but also how far we still have to go.

I will not spoil the ending, but I will say that this is a complicated book that will make you think about these characters and about which characters' stories normally get told and how. While I found the book quite deep, this book - and prior books by Brooks - have been criticized for cultural appropriation. If you are not familiar with this term, according to Britannica, this occurs "when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way." I was dumfounded that one might categorize this book in that way because two of the principal characters - who are depicted more favorably than any other character - are Black. 

Fiction is empowering because it causes the reader to expand his/her horizons. I do not think an author can or should only write about his/her life. In fact what makes fiction so compelling is the ability of the author to tell other people's stories from their perspectives. Isn't that something we all wish to experience when we read a book? If Black people are the only ones qualified to write about Black characters and if those are the only characters they can write about, then that would be to the great detriment of a much larger world and audience.

I encourage you to read Horse and decide for yourself about its merits. I promise it will help you understand our history better, and you will also learn more about horses than you may have ever wanted to!