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I finished #reading *Horse* by Geraldine Brooks, based on the history of the famous Thoroughbred racing horse Lexington. (In spite of being a horse person in a former life, I had not heard of him. But that does not lessen the enjoyment of the story in any way, nor do you need to be interested in horses at all to enjoy this book.)
This is a sweeping historical novel exploring the crucial role of enslaved black people in the South's horse racing industry just before the outbreak of the Civil War, as well as the modern re-discovery of this history.

As it in my view has to, in order to be an honest narrative, it also addresses racism and police violence in modern America.

As a story featuring two black men as main characters written by a white author, the book is controversial, and I have certainly read some valid criticism! *)
But apart from a very shoehorned-in romance and some hamfisted passages (almost all in the contemporary part of the story), I found the narrative fascinating, empathetic, gripping and believable, and I think that it does the history justice.

https://geraldinebrooks.com/horse/
#books #bookstodon @bookstodon
#ChaosBooks

*) Several of the book reviews in large book publications that I read feature discussions and criticisms of Brooks' depiction of her black characters.
But none of these publications actually seemed to have engaged a black book critic to write on the subject. Now, I know that black book critics will have written about this book somewhere, but nowhere that I could find on the first few results pages of a search engine, sadly.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a venue with book reviews by a more diverse group of authors?