Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

read excerpt* *Different edition

Lord of Misrule

3.25 of 5 stars 3.25 · rating details · 1,608 ratings · 476 reviews

A brilliantnovel that captures the dusty, dark, and beautiful world of small-time horse racing, where trainers, jockeys, grooms and grifters vie for what little luck is offered at a run-down West Virginia track .

Tommy Hansel has a plan: run four horses, all better than they look on paper, at long odds at Indian Mound Downs, then grab the purse -- or cash a bet -- and run...more

ebook, 304 pages

Published March 8th 2011 by Vintage (first published 2010)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Dec 24, 2011 jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: us-regional, experimental

this book is really, really, really good and you must read it. it may not be for everyone (what book is) but, man, this woman can write, and the story is fantastic. i love these characters. i love the horses. i love the low fog that keeps you from seeing your feet at 4 in the morning. i like how madness slowly creeps into a character and makes him both repellant and awesome. i like the tough women. i LOVE medicine ed. it's a small world but so, so rich. kind of like a family-run freak show, but...more

11 likes · like · see review

Nov 18, 2010 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lord of Misrule is set at Indian Mound Downs, a small horseracing track in West Virginia. The characters—among them aging groom Medicine Ed, “gyp” and horse owner Deucey Gifford, and disgraced money man Two-Tie—are just getting by, eking out a living on the seedy side of the sport of kings. But then Maggie Koderer turns up requesting stalls for the horses her boyfriend Tommy Hansel intends to bring down to race at Indian Mounds. Unlike the others, Maggie, who recently left her job as a food writ...more Lord of Misrule is set at Indian Mound Downs, a small horseracing track in West Virginia. The characters—among them aging groom Medicine Ed, “gyp” and horse owner Deucey Gifford, and disgraced money man Two-Tie—are just getting by, eking out a living on the seedy side of the sport of kings. But then Maggie Koderer turns up requesting stalls for the horses her boyfriend Tommy Hansel intends to bring down to race at Indian Mounds. Unlike the others, Maggie, who recently left her job as a food writer for a local newspaper, hasn’t been worn down from years of track life. She’s still enjoying the early stages of her seduction this world. What she doesn’t yet know is that, like her relationship with Tommy, a love affair with racing brings with it violence and pain.

Gordon is a wonderful descriptive writer with a real talent for taking on different voices. Most of the book is in third person (with a few sections in second person), and when the book shifts it focus from one character to another, Gordon also adjusts the narrative voice to suit the character.

I definitely got the sense the Gordon paid careful attention to every single word of the page. And for the most part, I thought the prose was well-done. Still, I was sometimes too conscious of the talent behind the words, rather than being caught up in the words themselves or the story the words are telling. Gordon has also adopted the odd (but inexplicably popular) affectation of not using quotation marks for dialogue. That’s not the kind of thing I’ll necessarily hold against a book, but there were several moments when I was brought up short because I didn’t realize I was reading dialogue until I’d read a few paragraphs of it!

The story was a similarly mixed success for me. It took a while for me to get into the story, just because there are a lot of characters and because the racing world is not one I’m immediately comfortable in. Gordon does a nice job helping readers get acclimated—it’s just not an instantaneous process. Once I got into the book, I was generally okay. I was especially riveted by the second race, involving Little Spinoza, a horse who seems to panic at the slightest provocation but whose owners are convinced has a winning race in him. But there were some sections where my interest flagged, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

I think part of the problem was that the only character I cared about was Maggie; she’s the only one who didn’t feel like a sketch to me. And my caring about Maggie did run all that deep—it was more like idle curiosity. I did think that Gordon used Maggie’s story to draw out some ideas about how we choose what kind of lives we will lead and how we learn to find peace with our limitations (or not). These ideas also show up to some extent in the other characters’ paths, but I just wasn’t drawn in.

So it seems that Lord of Misrule is one of many books that I can see as being technically accomplished but that I can’t really bring myself to love.

See my complete review at my blog.(less)

11 likes · like · see review

Sep 26, 2011 Bev Hankins rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Bev by: Richard Nash

Shelves: fiction

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon opens with "Inside the back gate of Indian Mound Downs, a hot-walking machine creaked round and round. In the judgment of Medicine Ed, walking a horse himself on the shedrow of Barn Z, the going-nowhere contraption must be the lost soul of this cheap racetrack where he been ended up at." That hot-walking machine provides the metaphor for the cheap claiming race track at the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings.

Gordon's National Book Award winner is all about the...more Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon opens with "Inside the back gate of Indian Mound Downs, a hot-walking machine creaked round and round. In the judgment of Medicine Ed, walking a horse himself on the shedrow of Barn Z, the going-nowhere contraption must be the lost soul of this cheap racetrack where he been ended up at." That hot-walking machine provides the metaphor for the cheap claiming race track at the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings.

Gordon's National Book Award winner is all about the world of the cheap race, down-on-their-luck trainers, jockeys and owners, and the horses that are literally on their last legs. Tracks like this are where racing folk go when they have nowhere else to go. Into this world comes horseman Tommy Hansel. He has a plan to change his luck and get him and his horses back into racing as a money-maker. His idea is to bring four unknown horses into Indian Mound Downs, have them run in the cheap claiming races at long odds, cash his bets, and "get out fast" before anyone notices what he's done. However, in a world that also includes loan sharks, small-time gangsters, and savvy former trainers, things don't always go as planned. Part of Hansel's luck depends on his girlfriend, Maggie--but even he doesn't foresee the way her luck will run.

This is an interesting book. I noticed several blog reviews which mentioned the dialect and how difficult it was to get into the book because of it. The dialect didn't really give me trouble--although I do find it a bit inconsistent at times. What I found most difficult was getting used to the rhythm of the writing itself. It took a while before I got the feel of it. There would be long almost-lyrical passages of gorgeous writing and then, all of sudden, nothing. It reminded me of the first races of two of the horses, Mahdi and Little Spinoza. Each horse had a beautiful run at the start of their race. Mahdi running like no one knew he could and then all of a sudden getting distracted, slowing up, and getting beaten at the finish. Little Spinoza taking off like a shot, running himself out, and just quitting. The break in the continuity of the writing mirrored those races--which made me wonder if this was deliberate. Was Gordon trying to give us the feel of a failed race in her very writing style? It certainly seemed so.

One portion of the book that disturbed me--the idea that the key to pleasure is pain. The relationship between Maggie and Tommy is built on this concept and Tommy absolutely believes that this is the key that "unlocks" all women. And there is a carry-over to the horses. Many of the horses running in these races are in pain somewhere--in their feet, in their legs, sometimes in their apparent fear of the racing itself. But they are represented as breaking through the pain (or using the pain) to reach the pleasure of the run--particularly Lord of Misrule in the final race.

Gordon's use of imagery and metaphor is a bit uneven--at times she's dead-on with description ("his dapples came up like god's golden fingerprints") but then she can turn around and use one like this: "Natalie, the New Rochelle chainstore divorcee, with her big pink open mouth like a toilet seat." And I definitely wish an editor had convinced her to use punctuation for her dialogue (no quote marks, ever). But overall, a captivating book--particularly once I found the rhythm in the writing. The story is compelling and I found myself rooting for the horses and even more for Maggie. Three and 3/4 stars--verging on four, but not quite.
(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 01, 2013 Bob Wake rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The West Virginia racetrack hangers-on that populate Jaimy Gordon’s 2010 National Book Award-winning Lord of Misrule have rich inner lives that sweep them up in ecstasies of insight or irrationality; guided by seer-like divinations; glutted and spellbound by sensuality; pulled apart by rage and self-destructive impulses. The story, set in 1970, is mythic yet rudely earthbound, refusing at every turn to romanticize the meanness of lives circumscribed by the hardest of luck.

Luck, after all, can tu...more The West Virginia racetrack hangers-on that populate Jaimy Gordon’s 2010 National Book Award-winning Lord of Misrule have rich inner lives that sweep them up in ecstasies of insight or irrationality; guided by seer-like divinations; glutted and spellbound by sensuality; pulled apart by rage and self-destructive impulses. The story, set in 1970, is mythic yet rudely earthbound, refusing at every turn to romanticize the meanness of lives circumscribed by the hardest of luck.

Luck, after all, can turn on a dime or the dusty final stretch of a horse race. And luck, like God, requires faith in its intervention and patience with its mysterious ways. Tommy Hansel, a college-educated wannabe stable-owner, surmises:

It came because you called to it, whistled for it, because it saw you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Luck was the world leaping into your arms across a deep ditch and long odds. It was love, which is never deserved; all the rest was drudgery.

To Medicine Ed, the racetrack’s aged and superstitious dispenser of both conjured and chemical performance enhancers, Tommy Hansel is “a young fool.”

The only horses you’ll find at the fictitious Indian Mound Downs are past their prime and damaged physically and spiritually. They run in what are called “claiming races,” meaning they’re for sale prior to post time. It’s supposed to keep things level and fair: only horses of similar value compete against one another. Should a claimed horse win the purse, i.e., “win going away,” the major share of the winnings are awarded to the previous rather than the new owner.

Individuals trying to game the system (or trying simply to intuit the combined aerodynamic alchemy of grooming, feed, exercise, phenylbutazone, and a hopefully not-too-psychotic jockey) comprise the good, the bad, and the ugly at Indian Mound Downs. The novel’s most memorable heavy is the “slug-lipped” Joe Dale Bigg, a bullying mob-connected owner whose base of operations is the front seat of his “midnight blue steel-top Cadillac.”

Our lifeline to normalcy and human kindness in Lord of Misrule arrives in the person of Maggie Koderer, gangster’s niece and failed culinary journalist. Her grooming instincts with horses are preternatural (“she tried to believe in the blind connectedness of her body, its unknown powers”), the animals trust her and are attracted to her, as we are, as readers. Maggie is more often than not guided by her better angels, unlike her lover, Tommy Hansel, who increasingly loses his way in the narrative, his sanity crumbling while Maggie’s strength grows. As we gallop toward the fourth and final section of this startlingly original novel, when the portentous titular horse Lord of Misrule is scheduled to race, we’re in a symbol-laden no-man’s-land that seemingly draws from the richest of literary traditions, from biblical apocalypse to Shakespearean madness-on-the-heath.

Written in a kind of roaming second- and third-person-intimate narration with alternating points of view, each chapter is a slipstream connecting fluidly to the next, momentum and memories building steadily, sometimes abstractly, sometimes inscrutably. Then, about midway through Lord of Misrule, without our at first realizing it, we discover ourselves fully immersed in a world and a cast of characters—human and equine—with whom we feel eerily connected on the deepest elemental level. By the time Maggie is lured into Joe Dale Bigg’s Cadillac our concern for her safety is such that we’re breathlessly clicking pages on our Kindles dreading the worst.(less)

like · see review

Feb 15, 2013 Joseph rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is a reason Lord of Misrule won the National Book Award. Gordon expertly employees four separate third-person narrators (well, one is actually second-person) throughout the entire book. Each chapter dives into a different characters head and never once does the reader feel at a loss for who is the focus.

Every character in this book is trying to stack the odds in their favor to either simply survive in or walk away very rich from the horse racing world. The truth is that they are all suscep...more There is a reason Lord of Misrule won the National Book Award. Gordon expertly employees four separate third-person narrators (well, one is actually second-person) throughout the entire book. Each chapter dives into a different characters head and never once does the reader feel at a loss for who is the focus.

Every character in this book is trying to stack the odds in their favor to either simply survive in or walk away very rich from the horse racing world. The truth is that they are all susceptible to what feels like a perpetual cycle of many losses with an occasional win so long as they remain within the confines of the racing world—which can be seen as a metaphor for human existence in the world at large. Gordon’s characters know or learn the ins and outs of the racing world, for better or worse, and they do their best to continue to put a roof of their own over their heads (Medicine Ed), keep a horse in their stall (Duecey), protect their family (Two-Tie), discover who they are (Maggie).

This book is also about the fallacy of the Cinderella story. Each person who makes any kind of gain, legitimate or otherwise, does so through hard work or very dirty dealings, which often lead to unpleasant consequences. There is nothing pretty about the workings of this horse race world, even some of the horses themselves have been run ragged. Yet, everyone loves a Cinderella story, even if they have to ignore a few shady details to believe it.

In the end, Maggie discovers that she is stronger and more capable of handling life than she ever knew herself to be before coming to Indian Mound Downs. She no longer feels she was there simply to take care of Tommy Hansel and his horses; she was there for herself as much as for any man or any animal.

The language in this book is divine. Even in the early stages of the book when I was trying to orient myself and when the action was slow, the language kept me reading. The first two chapters are great, but it was as if Gordon was purposefully keeping us in the gate when all we wanted to do was burst out and get on with the race.

I’m glad she finally opened the gate because the story really picks up. While the whole book is superb, Chapter 27 is some of the best reading I have ever had the privilege of experiencing. I went over it at least twice and plan on reading it again. In that chapter, specifically, Gordon carries the reader on her back as if she were a seasoned thoroughbred; the reader is never distracted or thrown off by a single word. The entire book is drenched in images and phrases that had me breaking out the highlighter and rereading pages for pure enjoyment’s sake.

For me as a writer, the greatest strength of all, regarding Lord of Misrule, is that every time I put it down, I wanted to write.(less)

like · see review

Jul 18, 2012 Missy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed the author's knowledge base of the underbelly of the "race track" industry. Jaimy Gordon gained experience when she worked in the industry in the Western part of Maryland. The book takes place in the WV panhandle sided by Ohio on the west, and PA on the east. The cast of characters are from zany-to-dangerous-to outright insane, as one reads the slow decline of a character's progression into insanity. The reader also meets the pluse of the race track industry, those individuals w...more

like · see review

Jan 15, 2012 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Winner of the National Book Award but for the life of me I can't figure out why. There are good things about it and Gordon writes some very vivid images, but the book was uneven at best. It is the early 70's at a seedy horse track in West Virginia. There are mafia types fixing races and beating up the locals. The characters are sketchy in both senses of the word. Sometimes dramatic things are happening to them without enough explanation. The style is odd. There are multiple narrators and it's ha...more

4 likes · like · see review

Sep 18, 2011 Kat Hagedorn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

http://tinyurl.com/684lvv6

Absolutely, I would title my book after the best horse name in the biz. (Or at least the best horse name in this book.) I think "Lord of Misrule" trumps "Pelter," "Little Spinoza," and "Little Boll Weevil" (although that last one is fairly awesome). Strangely, though, this book isn't really about horses. It's about how we've transformed horses into a substrata of American culture, and all the wonderful and scuzzy things that come from having done that.

I'm sure the book...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 26, 2011 Bonnie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had a love-hate relationship with this book, or at least a like-hate relationship. I have to admit I'm surprised it won a National Book Award. That's the best there is out there? Ugh. It is everything stereotypically bad about the backside of a racetrack. Broken down claimers held together with glue (and a myriad of drugs, legal and illegal), gamblers fixing races, the organized crime mafioso lording it over the lesser humans at the track, a brutal breakdown during a race, and a woman in starr...more

10 likes · like · see review

May 15, 2011 Mark Gromko rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

The novel is set in the context of the seamy side of horse racing, “claiming races.” The prelude provides this hint as to the nature of claiming races: “When [the owner] enters his animal in a race for $5,000 claiming horses, the owner literally puts it up for sale at that price. Any other owner can file a claim before the race and lead the beast away after the running. The original owner collects the horse’s share of the purse, if it earned any, but he loses the horse at a fair price. That is,...more

like · see review

Apr 03, 2011 Rachel Ludwig rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jaimy Gordon’s Lord of Misrule is an excellent and unique read. The setting is Indian Mound Downs, a rundown racetrack in West Virginia. There are four main characters: Tommy Hansel and Maggie Koderer who hope of winning big and moving on to the next track; Medicine Ed, the old groom who dreams of winning enough to retire to Florida; and the loan shark and loner, Two-Tie, who is growing increasingly tired of the racetrack game. Gordon constructs these characters as well as a myriad of other char...more Jaimy Gordon’s Lord of Misrule is an excellent and unique read. The setting is Indian Mound Downs, a rundown racetrack in West Virginia. There are four main characters: Tommy Hansel and Maggie Koderer who hope of winning big and moving on to the next track; Medicine Ed, the old groom who dreams of winning enough to retire to Florida; and the loan shark and loner, Two-Tie, who is growing increasingly tired of the racetrack game. Gordon constructs these characters as well as a myriad of other characters skillfully. I drew many similarities between the main characters and the four primary horses. They seemed to be reflections of one another. I liked that she used the horses as a means for character development. The characters’ pasts are very briefly covered, but I felt that this worked really well for the story because it seemed that all the characters wanted to forget their past and look to the future. The POV is an alternating close third person on the main characters except for the chapters which focus on Tommy which are in second person perspective. The alternating POV gives the reader a three dimensional look at the characters by showing what they think as well as how others see them. Often chapters will go back and show a different character’s reaction to the same event.
Gordon really captures life on the racetrack and immerses the reader in this world. The language, superstitions, gambling, gangsters, and desperation were very believable. It is clear she is knowledgeable on this subject. Description is prevalent throughout this book which is a blessing to readers who are not familiar with the racetrack or West Virginia. I must warn, however, since it is written primarily in the vernacular of a West Virginian racetrack and since Gordon does not define some of the slang and racing terms, the wording may throw the reader for a loop at first. However, I found that after I became familiar with the different narrative voices and characters, it was easy to understand the language.
Lord of Misrule is about four people trying to make it big at a second rate racetrack, but there seems to be several deeper themes throughout this book: finding a home, forging relationships, breaking ties, and coming to terms with death. The subject and setting lent themselves to these themes marvelously. Horseracing could tie people together or tear them apart depending simply on what side of a bet one found oneself. The racetrack could become a home or a stop on the long road to finding one. The racetrack also can symbolize life and death. The people in this story are dependent on it to survive but it is also the place of death for unlucky horses and people alike. I really liked how Gordon tied the plot, setting, and character development so closely together. Everything seemed to fit perfectly.
Though Lord of Misrule is full of tragedy, it seemed humorous and somehow uplifting at the same time. Jaimy Gordon did such an excellent job creating her characters (horses included) that it seems fitting to rejoice for their successes and mourn their deaths. I really liked this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject of horseracing as well as to those who are not.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Feb 24, 2011 Zach rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have to be honest, the only reason I picked this book up was because the author, Jaimy Gordon, was going to be giving a lecture in town. I didn't care about small-stakes horse racing, and I'm always wary of award winners. As soon as I finished the second chapter, though, I was hooked, and the novel kept getting better from there. Gordon crafts a collection of excellent characters, from the young and naive Maggie, to the veteran Medicine Ed (whose dialect is pitch perfect and never difficult to...more

3 likes · like · see review

Feb 08, 2011 Jessie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can see how this is the kind of thing people like - it's written in poetical dialect, and it focuses on a very oldfashioned, very specific subculture, and racing is the kind of space that brings people together, so you can have the old black groom, and the young jewish woman, and the crazy irishman.... And since it takes place in the fuzzy old 1970s, there were more regionalisms, no cellphones, less stuff.... I don't know. It was enjoyable enough in its own way, and maybe it's partly difficult...more

7 likes · like · see review

Feb 02, 2011 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Luckily, a Christmas break lunch visit with Salvatore Scibona reminded me that I had purchased Lord of Misrule the day after it won the National Book Award. On a strong recommendation from Salvatore, I started the book on December 27 and read it as much as I could over the remainder of the Christmas break week - stealing time from family visits and getting out of bed to read after everyone else was asleep. Although I didn't think that a book about horse racing would appeal to me at all, the beau...more

like · see review

Jan 20, 2011 Chuck Lowry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I guess, honestly, I must have missed something. I read this book for two reasons, because it won the National Book Award and because it was about horseracing, in which I have had great interest at various times in my life. Ah, but the National Book Award--Walker Percy for The Moviegoer, Alice McDermott for Charming Billy, Saul Bellow for The Adventures of Augie March, Bernard Malamud for The Fixer. Add Lord of Misrule to these and it is an easy game of "Which Doesn't Belong and Why?"

It is poss...more

18 likes · like · see review

Jan 15, 2011 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel like I almost know the writer too well to really respond impartially to this book; I had her as a teacher, once read almost all her works to prepare to interview her, etc. So, I'm at once really primed to like Jaimy's work, but also perversely in tune to how she sometimes repeats herself.

In this book, we get another version of the precocious female narrator, the same one we've seen in Bogeywoman, She Drove, and in one could argue, The Bend, The Lip, the Kid. It's a little awkward, too, gi...more I feel like I almost know the writer too well to really respond impartially to this book; I had her as a teacher, once read almost all her works to prepare to interview her, etc. So, I'm at once really primed to like Jaimy's work, but also perversely in tune to how she sometimes repeats herself.

In this book, we get another version of the precocious female narrator, the same one we've seen in Bogeywoman, She Drove, and in one could argue, The Bend, The Lip, the Kid. It's a little awkward, too, given how closely this character Maggie physically aligns with the writer, though it's also true that the character of Maggie is unusual enough that it's not an entirely sentimental portrait, but it maybe too rosy to really hold our attention as the focal point of this novel.

There are other characters in this book, some of whom are rather sensitively portrayed-- Medicine Ed for one is really appealing, as is Two-Tie, two older characters who find themselves much closer to retirement than youth. But I think it's new territory for Jaimy, and I really like it.

Of course, it's not about character, or plot (which to me at least is a little too opaque here to be taken seriously). It's about the language-- Jaimy is known as a prose stylist, but unlike most people about whom that is said, I don't think that means every sentence Jaimy writes is especially elegant or balanced, just that every sentence is infected with a desire to move according to its own rhythm. There might, contra most prose stylists, be crude sentences here, but no boring ones.

The pleasure of Jaimy's prose is plumped by bringing in characters who speak in dialect, like Medicine Ed, which adds a richness and different flavor to the writing in those chapters he focalizes-- another way to look at it is that this adds an additional difficulty: this is a book of very dense writing.

I did really like it; I feel like the ending is a bit cursory, though maybe less so than usual. I do think the big final showdown is surprisingly composed for a work of literary fiction, esp. one that otherwise seems to casual about staging the action. But I'm less convinced that the thematic elements are really adequately worked out by that confrontation, or what follows.

Could I be any more vague? Probably. I mean, I'm not sure I really understand what brought Maggie to the track or why at the end she's left it. I don't really think that where Medicine Ed and the female trainer whose name I can't recall are left does justice to their particular storylines; I think the final treatment of Maggie's boyfriend is quite right, either, though he comes close to having a redemptive moment at the end. I feel a little like the design was lost, but knowing Jaimy, it's probably more accurate to say it was abandoned.(less)

5 likes · like · see review

Jan 13, 2011 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

13. Gordon, Jaimy. LORD OF MISRULE. (2010). ****. I personally found this a difficult book to get into. After the first fifty pages or so, however, after most of the principal characters had been introduced, you realize that Ms. Gordon is a very skilful writer. The jacket liner compares her to a blend of Nathanael West, Damon Runyon, and Eudora Welty. I’d have to agree but I’d a little Faulkner, too. The story centers around the world of cheap racing, “where trainers and jockeys, grooms and hors...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 02, 2011 Abigail Beckwith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, realistic

Lord of Misrule is filled with tough characters at a 1970s racetrack, all down on their luck and all fairly horse-obsessed. The book is filled with great descriptions of their lives and the world they live it. However, I felt the descriptions sometimes went too far and too long and I found myself getting lost. This particularly happened because there are no quotation marks for dialogue. Sometimes I was unsure what was inner monologue and what was actually said! The book switches characters, who...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 02, 2011 Linda Lackey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

like · see review

Jan 01, 2011 Jennyreadsexcessively rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tommy and Maggie dream of making their fortune at a backwoods, last-stop horse track in West Virginia. Their seedy schemes are no match for the rules of the track and the shady gangsters who finance it. The rules of the track? Don’t ask me to explain. I knew next to nothing about horse racing going in (shame on me a Kentucky girl!) and am still utterly confused going out.

The author’s style required very intense concentration from me. She uses a difficult, sometimes unintelligible, jargon in her...more

like · see review

Dec 13, 2010 Brayden rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gritty, dark, and surprisingly poignant. It's fitting that Gordon's novel was a surprise winner of the National Book Award given that the book is about a bunch of underdogs working at a low-stakes horse racetrack, each trying to survive in this sinister underworld. The pivotal character of the book, Maggie, is a frizzy-haired misfit who attracts the attention, most of it unwanted, of the racetrack's men. She also has an unconventional way of treating horses, harnessing their powers through affec...more

like · see review

Nov 15, 2010 Joe Drape rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow. This is the best book I've read in a long time, finished it in one sitting. It also is quite rightfully a finalist for the National Book Award. It's true literature. Anyone who knows anything about horse racing will be captivated as Gordon perfectly evokes the beauty and grit as well as the desperation and hope of racetrackers who inhabit a down and out track in West Virginia. There's a gentlemanly loan shark, a broken down groom, a crazy trainer, a crooked one and a head strong girl. Some...more

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 22, 2012 Ubik 2.0 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dietro le quinte dell’ippodromo
Lo ammetto. Ho scelto questo libro perchè vincitore del National Book Award dello scorso anno, trascurando il saggio criterio per cui è sempre meglio avere il supporto di un parere, un consiglio, una recensione, una buona conoscenza dell'autore, piuttosto che acquistare i vincitori di premi letterari a scatola chiusa.

A dire il vero sono stato attratto anche dalla particolare ambientazione del romanzo nel mondo delle corse ippiche, uno scenario un tempo molto in aug...more Dietro le quinte dell’ippodromo
Lo ammetto. Ho scelto questo libro perchè vincitore del National Book Award dello scorso anno, trascurando il saggio criterio per cui è sempre meglio avere il supporto di un parere, un consiglio, una recensione, una buona conoscenza dell'autore, piuttosto che acquistare i vincitori di premi letterari a scatola chiusa.

A dire il vero sono stato attratto anche dalla particolare ambientazione del romanzo nel mondo delle corse ippiche, uno scenario un tempo molto in auge specie nel cinema ma anche nella narrativa ed oggi del tutto emarginato.

Ed effettivamente questo è il punto di forza del libro, precisando che in primo piano non c'è l'immagine stereotipata dell'ippodromo, della pista o delle gradinate con la folla plaudente, i gabbiotti dei bookmakers e gli altoparlanti. Il punto di osservazione del romanzo è rivolto a quello che, anche letteralmente, sta dietro a tutto ciò: le stalle, le scuderie, gli artieri, le roulottes dove vivono e si agitano i lavoratori (e i mestatori) di questo mondo particolare e privo di senso epico, come invece lascerebbe indicare il fuorviante titolo italiano.

Questo è soprattutto l'ambiente dei "personaggi" cui l'autrice riserva lo sguardo più benevolo e cioè gli animali: i cavalli soprattutto e com'è ovvio (ma anche cani e capre), esseri semplici, miti e disinteressati, a differenza degli uomini che vivono accanto a loro e che, salvo rare eccezioni, li accudiscono soltanto per trarne vantaggio materiale, denaro e potere, spesso a scapito della salute e della vita degli inermi animali.

Peccato che questo quadro oggettivamente interessante sia narrato con una scrittura alquanto faticosa, uno stile a tratti enfatico e inutilmente virtuosistico che appare incongruente alla fisicità di un ambiente caratterizzato dalla fatica, dal sudore, dal dolore e dagli elementi materiali che lo compongono (il foraggio, la paglia, lo sterco, l'acqua e le spugne per strigliare le bestie). Soprattutto nella prima parte si procede nella lettura con scarso piacere, fra personaggi (gli umani, intendo) negativi e perdenti, logori e pieni di risentimento, a volte violenti e vendicativi, presentati in modo ellittico e indiretto; poi il racconto, soprattutto in occasione delle rapidissime sequenze sulle corse vere e proprie, prende anima ma non al punto da giustificare quello da cui che eravamo partiti: le aspettative suscitate dal conferimento di un Award prestigioso.(less)

like · see review

Jun 21, 2012 Jeanne Julian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating, scary, very occasionally funny. Like The Sopranos meets Shirley Hazzard. Compared to the glittering surface glamor of the Kentucky Derby, the racing scene here is a messy morass, a slough of despond. One night, I stayed up late reading it for a particularly riveting section and then couldn't get to sleep because it was disturbing. I report that as a compliment. The details about life in the barns are so well drawn you can smell it. If you feel for animals, you'll be enchanted and di...more

like · see review

Mar 23, 2011 Heather rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-novels, life-is-too-short

Well this one really fizzles out. I stuck with it to the end, because I did enjoy the style. I was in the mood to be challenged by a book, and Lord of Misrule is challenging. No skimming! you have to read every word and some sentences are more like puzzles. Dialect and racing argot and convoluted syntax and weird nicknames ("It was not a harming goofer that Medicine Ed knew the making of.") And no quotation marks to help you follow the dialogue:
______
Medicine Ed laughed a little. I reckon that G...more Well this one really fizzles out. I stuck with it to the end, because I did enjoy the style. I was in the mood to be challenged by a book, and Lord of Misrule is challenging. No skimming! you have to read every word and some sentences are more like puzzles. Dialect and racing argot and convoluted syntax and weird nicknames ("It was not a harming goofer that Medicine Ed knew the making of.") And no quotation marks to help you follow the dialogue:
______
Medicine Ed laughed a little. I reckon that Grizzly nerved in all four feet, he said. I know he don't feel no pain.
Hell he is. Two's plenty, Deucey snapped.

(Translation: Medicine Ed laughed a little. "I reckon that Grizzly has had the nerve supplies cut to all four of his feet [surgery to numb a racehorse so he'll keep running despite injuries and trauma; unethical]," he said. "I know he don't feel no pain."

"Hell he has. Cutting the nerve supplies to two feet is plenty," Deucey snapped.)
______

BUT what is the reward for this effort? There's no character development, no epiphanies, no resolution of conflicts. Character motivations remain opaque. Nobody is changed by their experience, except the ones who get killed - I suppose that's a change. But not development.

Moral qualities line up predictably: the women are good, the poor black man is good, the white men are bad. (Well, one white man is a little bit good. But he used to be bad, when he was younger and had more energy.) This irritated me.

She basically set up her characters in the first section and assigned each one some distinguishing features and epithets: Maggie is "the curly-haired girl." Tommy is "the young fool" and dresses like a dandy. The Italian gangster rolls around in a car with tinted windows and wears hair grease and tight pants. He's bad. The Jewish gangster wears two ties (hence his name "Two-Tie") and dotes on his dog. Medicine Ed has a limp and thinks in dialect. Each character behaves in a consistent and predictable way: bad guys are bad in EVERY way and interaction, good guys are trustworthy and compassionate.

Characters' responses to each other seem almost automatic. They seem to trust or hate or love each other at first sight, and that response guides everything that happens between them... no first impression gets corrected, or refined, or complicated. The relationship that appears to be central just fades away, with no confrontation or even discussion.

If I'm generous, I'll say that the novel participates in the fatalism and mythic worldview of the racing milieu. Like everyone is a puppet of fate, and individual hopes, dreams, preferences, efforts, choices don't make much difference. There are epic aspects to the style that support that.
Or maybe it's trying to show the animalistic aspects of human nature - instinctive/physical responses rather than intellectual/psychological ones. An interesting experiment. But I want intellect and psychology and growth in a novel's characters.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 14, 2011 Mark rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lord of Misrule is the story of the trainers, grooms, jockeys and assorted hangers on at a seedy racetrack in West Virginia. I love horse racing and so I eagerly anticipated the novel, especially after learning that it had won the National Book Award.
Unfortunately, little about the story rang true. The story is told from the point of view of several characters, a technique that is quickly becoming hackneyed. One of the characters is Medicine Ed, the African American groom. Ed's narration is su...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jun 27, 2011 Mai rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book started off fantastic -- the imagery was striking, the characters were interesting, and the occasional use of dialect wasn't too intrusive.

About halfway through the book, though, I started losing my handle on the book. I found myself having trouble remembering which horse was which, and what connected the various characters to which horses. For obvious reasons, that made the book much less enjoyable. By the end, I was even a little unsure that I understood why people were doing what th...more

like · see review

Nov 27, 2010 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Most of us, when we think of horse racing, conjure up a mint-juleps-and-roses vision of the Kentucky Derby or perhaps, Churchill Downs, attended by jewel-studded rich folk dressed up in their finery with cash to burn.

But at the rock-bottom end of the sport, horse racing is a whole other world – a world inhabited by down-on-their-luck trainers and jockeys, loan sharks and crooks, gyps and hotwalkers. This is the world Jaimy Gordon takes on – Indian Mound Downs, where the horses are mostly aging,...more Most of us, when we think of horse racing, conjure up a mint-juleps-and-roses vision of the Kentucky Derby or perhaps, Churchill Downs, attended by jewel-studded rich folk dressed up in their finery with cash to burn.

But at the rock-bottom end of the sport, horse racing is a whole other world – a world inhabited by down-on-their-luck trainers and jockeys, loan sharks and crooks, gyps and hotwalkers. This is the world Jaimy Gordon takes on – Indian Mound Downs, where the horses are mostly aging, drugged, or lame and the trainers are as crooked and cynical as they come.

Into this world steps Maggie, a young, college-educated frizzly-haired, naïve girl who has hitched her wagon to her boyfriend Tommy’s star – a “young fool” with a scheme to rescue his failing stable. He intends to ship four down-and-out horses there, race them at long odds, take the money and run before anyone knows what’s happened. But Maggie and Tommy don’t really have a clue what they’re up against – jaded and desperate men for whom horses mean nothing and people mean even less.

Jaimy Gordon knows her way around this world and she certainly knows her horses. Each of the four parts of the book is centered on an individual horse – Mr. Boll Weevil, Little Spinoza, Pelter, and the “devil horse” Lord of Misrule. These are horses filled with personality, treading their way into the flying mud with chopping legs and nostrils cavernous and flaring, neurotic as all hell, almost but not quite ready to live up to their potential. The descriptions of the horses and the races they enter and the conditions they endure are among the finest you’re ever likely to read.

Ms. Gordon’s idiosyncratic people are slightly less developed, mainly because they are down-and-out and trapped. Some of them shine: Medicine Ed, for example, who dispenses drugs to the horses is beautifully depicted and Maggie – and her cruel awakening – is also detailed with fine strokes. So is Two-Tie, Maggie’s gangster uncle who strives to be her protector. Others – including Tommy -- are less so.

These lowlifes speak in their own racetrack patois (and it helps to know at least be open to learning this patois); they are limited and restricted, unable to survive without the dust and the road of the racetrack. It’s difficult to even think of them racetrack hanger-ons existing in the outside world -- perhaps the one glaring fault of the novel. The characters become secondary to the world they live in, bit players who strut and fret their hour on stage when ultimately, they are mostly doomed.

Tommy reflects: “Now it all falls into place. Before, you thought you knew, and felt your way along blindly. And though this world is a black tunnel of love where the gods admonished you to search without rest for your lost twin, it’s also haired all over with false pointers, evil instructions, lost-forever dead-ends.”

There is a propulsive energy to Lord of Misrule, a voice that’s strong and original, and an intimate knowledge that’s in turn, poignant, comic, heartbreaking, and suspenseful. The surprise winner of the National Book Award this year, Lord of Misrule brings the reader (less)

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 15, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, natl-book-award

From the opening metaphor of the hot-walking machine at Indian Mound Downs to its final pages, this novel is filled with characters, human and animal, whose lives intersect in dramatic encounters. The setting is the world of horse racing. Like the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Dickens when they portrayed the lower classes, the story is set in the small time backwater of the claims stakes with bit players, the subculture of grifters and ne’er-do-wells whose lives center on a venue that ob...more From the opening metaphor of the hot-walking machine at Indian Mound Downs to its final pages, this novel is filled with characters, human and animal, whose lives intersect in dramatic encounters. The setting is the world of horse racing. Like the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Dickens when they portrayed the lower classes, the story is set in the small time backwater of the claims stakes with bit players, the subculture of grifters and ne’er-do-wells whose lives center on a venue that obviously has never and will never bring them success. They include the handlers, owners, and wannabes along with gamblers, backers, and assorted hanger-ons. They have names like Two-Tie, Medicine Ed, Kidstuff and Deucey, and they’re capable of speaking a kind of racetrack patois occasionally reminiscent of Damon Runyon characters: “So I want you should write me a race, well, not me personally, fellow from Nebraska, kid I used to know back when—actually I used to know his mother…She was very good to me. Alas, I fear I did not return the favor like I should have.” At the center of the novel is Tommy Hansel, a horse trainer with a get-rich-quick scheme that he feels cannot fail. He plans to enter “sure-fire” winners in claiming races, benefit from the long odds, then get out of town quickly. "I tell you a secret, horse racing is not no science."(p 83)
'Nothing, of course, goes according to plan, especially since everyone seems on to his scheme, and the horses aren’t as cooperative as Tommy would like them to be. Complicating the issue is the quirky, intelligent Maggie Koderer, new to the horse-race business but nonetheless Tommy’s love. Maggie is college-educated but is drawn to the seamy underbelly of the track and the broken-down beauty of the horses.

The best aspect of Jaimy Gordon's fine novel is the portrayal of the racing milieu. The atmosphere is a presence that is strong enough to smell. The characters are developed through small vignettes through which their personalities gradually emerge. Gordon structures the narrative around the four horses and she seamlessly moves the reader from one narrative consciousness to another without being manipulative or intrusive. The races themselves are described with a tour de force of energy and spirit. The exceptional writing and idiosyncratic characters give the reader entry into another world and make this a delightful, engaging, and even award-winning read.(less)

like · see review

Oct 19, 2011 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lord of Misrule is a really good book, but I almost didn’t realize it. I read it more out of a sense of hometown pride—Hey, someone who teaches in Kalamazoo, Michigan won the National Book Award!—than any real knowledge of or interest in the book.
And at first I was stumped: Gordon takes us into a world that seems so foreign and gritty—the world of horse racing—and leaves us there to fend for ourselves. I know nothing about horse racing and have never been interested in it, and Gordon doesn’t...more Lord of Misrule is a really good book, but I almost didn’t realize it. I read it more out of a sense of hometown pride—Hey, someone who teaches in Kalamazoo, Michigan won the National Book Award!—than any real knowledge of or interest in the book.
And at first I was stumped: Gordon takes us into a world that seems so foreign and gritty—the world of horse racing—and leaves us there to fend for ourselves. I know nothing about horse racing and have never been interested in it, and Gordon doesn’t over-explain. The book opens with a hot-walking machine, and I’m still not even sure what this is. Even the book’s epigraph, an excerpt from Ainslie’s Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing, meant (I think) to help clarify certain elements of horse racing for us, had me confused. I had to keep going back to reread it to make sure I understand the plot elements that hinged on this particular bit of horse-racing.
Reading the book at first really felt like work. And then suddenly it didn’t. Once I got used to the dialect of certain characters (“Sadday” for “Saturday” and other invented spellings) and the heavy racing vernacular, I was hooked.
The characters could, in less sure hands, be mere caricatures of a type—the Black medicine-man groom, the innocent young girl who gets caught in the seedy world of the track, and the young handsome, heroic lead; but Gordon pushes through these flat types: Her medicine-man isn’t sure of his own powers; the girl, though innocent to horse racing, is sharp enough to understand the world she’s in, and the handsome hero is off-kilter and dangerous. None of these characters’ flaws specifically lead to their undoing, and the novel doesn’t follow any sort of predicable trajectory. Instead the story is unpredictable while still being believable. It’s brash and big in its style yet subtle and realistic in its portrayal of the world, not just the horse-racing world, but the world that the rest of us know.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (10)

More editions...

Genres

Book Club

16 users

Animals > Horses

16 users

Sports And Games > Sports

11 users

Literary Fiction

11 users

Novels

11 users

Contemporary

9 users

Sports > Horse Racing

7 users

Animals

6 users

Adult

6 users

Literature > American

5 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Jaimy Gordon

Jaimy Gordon's third novel, Bogeywoman was on the Los Angeles Times list of Best Books for 2000. Her second novel, She Drove Without Stopping, brought her an Academy-Institute Award for her fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gordon's short story, "A Night's Work," which shares a number of characters with Lord of Misrule, appeared in Best American Short Stories 1995. She is also...more

More about Jaimy Gordon...

Books by Jaimy Gordon

Circumspections from an Equestrian Statue

The Bend, The Lip, The Kid: Reallife Stories

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Lord of Misrule

5 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from Lord of Misrule

“Her hands felt their way blindly along the ridges and canyons and defiles of the spine, the firm root-spread hillocks of the withers. She rolled her bony knuckles all along the fallen tree of scar tissue at the crest of the back, prying up its branches, loosening its teeth. And it must be having some effect: when she walked Pelter these days he wasn't the sour fellow he used to be, he was sportive, even funny. She had walked him this morning until the rising sun snagged in the hackberry thicket. As they swung around the barn, she took a carrot from her pocket and gave him the butt and noisily toothed the good half herself. He curvetted like a colt, squealed, and cow-kicked alarmingly near her groin. Okay, okay, she said, and handed it over. She was glad there was no man around just then to tell her to show that horse who was boss. When they were back in the stall and she turned to leave, she found he had taken he whole raincoat in his mouth and was chewing it--the one she was wearing. She twisted around with difficulty and pried it out of his mouth. He eyed her ironically. Just between us, is this the sort of horse act I really ought to discipline? she asked him, smoothing out her coat. I simply incline to your company, he replied.” — 2 people liked it

“He was insane, he thought people were trying to destroy him, to suck out his guts, but, she noted, in the rare event that someone was trying to destroy you, to suck out your guts, insanity was a goodly metaphysics.” — 1 person liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Lord of Misrule
avg rating	preview: Lord of Misrule Goodreads rating: 3.25 (1608 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10723734-lord-of-misrule?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361147559l/10723734.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10723734-lord-of-misrule?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon[/url]

Lord of Misrule

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website