The Sport of Kings Synopsis
A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction -
A Recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction -
A Finalist for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction -
A Finalist for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction -
A Finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize -
Longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence -
One of New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Book Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly -
GQ -
The New York Times (Selected by Dwight Garner) -
NPR -
The Wall Street Journal -
San Francisco Chronicle -
Refinery29 -
Booklist -
Kirkus Reviews -
Commonweal Magazine "In its poetic splendor and moral seriousness, The Sport of Kings bears the traces of Faulkner, Morrison, and McCarthy. . . . It is a contemporary masterpiece."--San Francisco Chronicle Hailed by
The New Yorker for its "remarkable achievements,"
The Sport of Kings is an American tale centered on a horse and two families: one white, a Southern dynasty whose forefathers were among the founders of Kentucky; the other African-American, the descendants of their slaves.
It is a dauntless narrative that stretches from the fields of the Virginia piedmont to the abundant pastures of the Bluegrass, and across the dark waters of the Ohio River; from the final shots of the Revolutionary War to the resounding clang of the starting bell at Churchill Downs. As C. E. Morgan unspools a fabric of shared histories, past and present converge in a Thoroughbred named Hellsmouth, heir to Secretariat and a contender for the Triple Crown. Newly confronted with one another in the quest for victory, the two families must face the consequences of their ambitions, as each is driven---and haunted---by the same, enduring question: How far away from your father can you run?
A sweeping narrative of wealth and poverty, racism and rage,
The Sport of Kings is an unflinching portrait of lives cast in the shadow of slavery and a moral epic for our time.
