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The Sport of Kings

C.E. Morgan

3.58 · Rating details · 3,217 ratings · 661 reviews

Hellsmouth, an indomitable thoroughbred with the blood of Triple Crown winners in her veins, runs for the glory of the Forge family, one of Kentucky’s oldest and most powerful dynasties. Henry Forge has partnered with his daughter, Henrietta, in an endeavor of raw obsession: to breed the next superhorse, the next Secretariat. But when Allmon Shaughnessy, an ambitious young ...more

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Hardcover, 560 pages

Published May 3rd 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published May 1st 2016)

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Mar 29, 2017 Hannah Greendale rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: women-s-prize-nominee, best-of-the-year, contemporary, literary-fiction, adult, fiction

Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.

Henry Forge - proud, racist, and uncompromising - nurtures a lifelong obsession to breed the next Thoroughbred superhorse, a desire that his only child, Henrietta, adopts with the same degree of all-consuming fervor. Allmon Shaughnessy, a young black man adept at working with horses, arrives at the Forge farm. His appetite for success aligns with that of the Forge family, and the three are inextricably d ...more

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Mar 09, 2016 Maureen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley

First off, I need to say that this is possibly THE most beautifully written book that I've had the pleasure to read. Powerful - Inspiring - and Moving words, and yet, these words also create vivid images of rape, slavery, and cruelty, that I found particularly hard to stomach. Of course these scenes and words were crucial to the overall picture, but you know what they say ' once read they cannot be unread'
The wealthy Forge family are one of the oldest families in Kentucky, descended from the fi ...more

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Jul 03, 2017 Jaline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: xx2017-completed, x-favourites

No-one and nothing emerges unscathed in this book. Regardless of race or region, whether plant, animal, mineral – even the earth itself – all are capable of, and do enact cruelty upon other members of their species or other species or those in contact with other species. In that sense, this book was almost nihilistic in tone. Just when redemption appeared to be at hand, it was ripped away with the force of a wild wind.

It begins as a family saga in Kentucky when Kentucky was still Virginia then s No-one and nothing emerges unscathed in this book. Regardless of race or region, whether plant, animal, mineral – even the earth itself – all are capable of, and do enact cruelty upon other members of their species or other species or those in contact with other species. In that sense, this book was almost nihilistic in tone. Just when redemption appeared to be at hand, it was ripped away with the force of a wild wind.

It begins as a family saga in Kentucky when Kentucky was still Virginia then skips ahead several generations and the bulk of the story takes place in the 7th through to the start of the 10th generation. This book covers a lot of territory, and through “intervals”, (the shorter pieces between the main parts of the book), historical background, racial conflicts, geological background, and various published theories are introduced, and excerpts and tracts are later woven into the main story itself.

I used to love watching horses race – all the most spectacular racers of the last century and this century and their “best of” races are available on YouTube. Watching those horses fly and accomplish astounding feats of athleticism always brought tears to my eyes. Then at some point I saw a horse injured in a race. I won’t go into detail, but it was awful and tragic. Then I saw a documentary on the corruption, the doping, and other machinations within the “Sport of Kings” and I was shocked and appalled. I have never been able to watch since.

While this book does involve horse breeding - specifically for racing - and is centered on that theme, for me, the book itself is a metaphor for horse racing. In the flow of the book I could feel the different gaits of different breeds of horses, from the Walkers with their fancy steps to the Thoroughbreds running wild and free. The pace of the book and its vast reach into regional and global issues mimics the free range of horses in the wild: sometimes a slow and thoughtful walk, sometimes a canter through historical elements, and at other times a full gallop where the tension of your own muscles can be felt as you hold on for dear life.

For me, it was in the second interval where this book became a metaphor of itself. Reading it was like watching, or being part of the experience of 'breaking' a horse for riding. Bucking, twisting, turning, down on the ground, up again, and more bucking and bolting until, exhausted, it stilled.

The writing is superb and brings forth family and racial issues in an immediate, in-your-face way. In places it is like the staccato hoof beats of a racer; in other places it is slower paced and factual like a horse grazing. Many times it is uncomfortable and I didn’t want to go there – like a race horse loaded into a trailer for a road trip to yet another racetrack or to a training school. I wanted to kick and scream and get out of that trailer, yet a part of me knew I had to keep going.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. It is long (545 pages), it takes you to uncomfortable and even horrific places, but I believe it is a very important book for all of us and is a very good read – as well as a long and sometimes uncomfortable ride. ...more

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Nov 11, 2017 Philip rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer, americana, 2016-releases, historical-fiction, author-woman

3ish stars.

Allow me to compare this novel to a horse. It's large, majestic, impressive, stately. Many times, however, it more closely resembles a Clydesdale than the Forge's racing thoroughbreds- powerful but less sleek than clunky and plodding. I had this rated as high as a 4 at some points and as low as a 2 at others, which speaks to its inconsistency, mostly in pace. There were times I was so engaged and impressed with Morgan's writing skill, while other times I felt like I was slogging thro ...more

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Feb 27, 2016 Emma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In the opening scene, we meet young Henry on the run from his father for the crime of killing the neighbour’s bull. His strident denials, churlishness to a black servant, and childish whining did not initially endear me to him, or the book. Then we meet his father, an overbearing man whose impossibly high expectations of his son were unlikely to be met, for he seemed like the sort who would never be satisfied. Suddenly, the boy’s behaviour became a little more understandable, though never likeab In the opening scene, we meet young Henry on the run from his father for the crime of killing the neighbour’s bull. His strident denials, churlishness to a black servant, and childish whining did not initially endear me to him, or the book. Then we meet his father, an overbearing man whose impossibly high expectations of his son were unlikely to be met, for he seemed like the sort who would never be satisfied. Suddenly, the boy’s behaviour became a little more understandable, though never likeable. By page 23, I was all in. However, if I was hoping for Henry to grow up into a better man, I would have been bitterly disappointed. As an adult, he becomes a disturbing mix of his father’s faults and his own nature, a volatile combination.

In this, he is not alone. Each of the main characters have strong personalities, destined to crash repeatedly into each other by the very nature of their ties to the family, the land, and the horses. Their feelings of unhappiness manifest again and again through extreme acts of anger, vindictiveness, and jealousy. Rape, lynching, death; all form part of the savage fabric of the novel. The vehement racism that runs through the plot varies from the ‘uppity Negro’ type to the pseudo-intellectual/philosophical/biological justifications for the white man’s supremacy. And I mean, ‘man’. Women have their own, very specific, role to play in this society. As heir apparent, Henrietta’s grooming for the top position is framed from the outset as being taught not to be like other women.
The book is foremost about family, about lineage and blood ties. As with horses, genealogy and familial connections are imbued with meaning and expectation. The conflict, and inevitable catastrophe, is determined by the ways in which characters seek to subvert, or escape, the powerful chains these presumptions place on their lives.

To say the book is challenging is an understatement. It’s a complex and surprising read, never following the narrative patterns you expect. Latin quotations and Socratic style dialogues are followed by disturbing scenes of violence. The writing has its own gait, disparate elements herded by Morgan into a comprehensive whole. It is this that ensures it stands apart, and highlights the author as someone stretching the boundaries of form.

Many thanks to C. E Morgan, 4th Estate, and RealReaders for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
...more

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Mar 19, 2017 Simon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

So, my thoughts. Firstly I was, because of the horses and the racing, pretty sure I would hate this book. So imagine my surprise when within 50 pages I was sold, gripped in the dynastic tale of the Forge family who are all frankly horrid and bonkers but oh so read able. The book then takes a huge twist into the life of Allmon and soon starts to look at class and race in America from the 1960's onwards. This book is jam packed. There is a but coming. I can't decide if Morgan does something clever ...more

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Oct 03, 2017 Hugh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-lit, read-2017, womens-prize-shortlist

This is an impressively wide-ranging novel that is almost a social history of Kentucky, as well as an examination of the racing industry and the science behind the evolution and breeding of thoroughbred horses. It centres on two families, one white and one black, and builds to a conclusion that has elements of Greek tragedy. I have no interest in horses, but never found that a problem.

At its heart is Henry Forge, whose family farm was founded by an ancestor who was one of the state's original se ...more

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Sep 06, 2016 Rebecca rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: skimmed, door-stoppers, historical-fiction, reviewed-for-nudge

Rumors of Great American Novel status abounded, but I found this Kentucky-based horse racing novel to be florid and overlong. The novel doesn’t really achieve takeoff until Allmon comes on the scene at about page 180. Although there are good descriptions of horses, the main plot – training Hellsmouth to compete in the 2006 Kentucky Derby – mostly passed me by. Meanwhile, the interpersonal relationships become surprisingly melodramatic, more fit for a late Victorian novel or maybe something by Fa ...more

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Mar 22, 2017 Rincey marked it as dnf

It's never too late to DNF a book. ...more

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Dec 08, 2016 Trudie rated it really liked it

Shelves: best-of-2017

Finally, coming up for air after 2 weeks with this novel, an ambitious multigenerational epic, hampered by indulgent digressions.
Lets deal with the horses, yep, there are large chunks of writing about matters equine - breeding, racing, frolicking, and evolution but this is not a horse racing novel like, say Seabiscuit: An American Legend, but rather a confronting story of race and certainly privilege. Hellsmouth, the key horse character of the book, really doesn't feature heavily until the last Finally, coming up for air after 2 weeks with this novel, an ambitious multigenerational epic, hampered by indulgent digressions.
Lets deal with the horses, yep, there are large chunks of writing about matters equine - breeding, racing, frolicking, and evolution but this is not a horse racing novel like, say Seabiscuit: An American Legend, but rather a confronting story of race and certainly privilege. Hellsmouth, the key horse character of the book, really doesn't feature heavily until the last third of the novel, and this strand seemed more like an allegory of slavery to me and less about a race horse. Certainly conflicting ideas about race percolate through the novel. It is shot through with tracts on Darwinian evolution, genetics and many other diversions of sometimes dubious relevance.
Other reviewers have mentioned this book feels nourished by authors like Faulkner and Melville - the transitions between relatively straight forward narrative and then sudden soliloquy, classical references, the wide ranging and sometimes fleeting characters. It is a very cerebral and confronting book and I applaud the attempt to capture something of the nature of race and the cascading consequences of history within a complex and yet very readable 550 pages.
However, I would have loved to see what a good editor could have done if they were allowed to reign in the excesses. Sometimes the momentum was lost under a deluge of what I call "stream of consciousness landscape description". I am sure 100 pages or more were devoted to the angle of sun through windows, light on the grass, cloud forms and the myriad of ways to describe the Ohio river.
In C.E Morgans own words
Or is all this too purple, too florid? Is more too much - the world and the words? Do you prefer your tales lean, muscular and dry, leached of excess and honed to a single, digestible point? Have I exceeded the bounds of the form, committed a literary sin ?

Hmmmm well I am going to err on the side of YES on this one. And yet it is mostly forgivable.

(Also this is a great review from Dwight Garner in the NY Times

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/18... )
...more

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May 27, 2016 RoseMary Achey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Although I enjoyed the writing style, the subject and characters were tedious and difficult to engage. A family saga concerned with a family that has few redeeming qualities. Every time I picked up this book, I wished for it to end, certainly not a glowing recommendation.

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Jun 24, 2017 Melissa Crytzer Fry rated it it was amazing

**I would give this book 10 stars if I could. **

[UPDATE (7/10): While prepping discussion questions for book club, I realized that I missed something KEY in this book -- a "holy cow, my mind is blown" kind of discovery that makes me feel this book is even MORE brilliant than my initial thoughts below. But you have to read closely, with focus, to catch it. Amazing, amazing, amazing!!]

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
What I’ve come to learn about myself as a reader is that I am patient enough (who knew?) to enjoy **I would give this book 10 stars if I could. **

[UPDATE (7/10): While prepping discussion questions for book club, I realized that I missed something KEY in this book -- a "holy cow, my mind is blown" kind of discovery that makes me feel this book is even MORE brilliant than my initial thoughts below. But you have to read closely, with focus, to catch it. Amazing, amazing, amazing!!]

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
What I’ve come to learn about myself as a reader is that I am patient enough (who knew?) to enjoy epic novels that span generations (This one was 545 pages). And I’m nerdy enough to enjoy puzzling out long, beautiful literary sentences that may ramble (This book does include some of those). I also enjoy gently-paced, character-driven stories with layered thematic complexity and metaphors/similes that are subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle (To me, a complex book that is more than JUST a story is like a breathtaking treasure hunt – digging for and finding symbolism and ferreting out recurring themes and assessing ambiguity, all while reading an engaging story).

This book offers all of those things and is magnificent on many levels – from the artistry of word choice to the gut-wrenching emotions lived through the pain of so many flawed characters. This is a story about history, about man’s thirst to dominate, about the pursuit of perfection and pleasure, about bigotry and judgement, about slavery in all its forms, about human-animal relationships, about betrayal, love and landscape, and family lineage. There are twists and turns toward the end of the book that will leave you gasping. You will be privy to information one of the main characters does not have, and you will be screaming (in your head, or aloud, as I was)… “No… Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” What a roller-coaster of emotion, but it’s more than that. This novel is a soul-searching meditation on issues of race and genetics and history and answering the question of whether that history can ever be rewritten. It’s a topic that appears to have been written for the very times in which we live; it is no surprise to me that this book was nominated for a Pulitzer and Kirkus Prize (and many others).

Horse racing, it turns out, is the perfect metaphor to parallel the themes of human breeding and genetics – and ties in well with another theme related to man’s blinding and often devastating ambition and his impact on the human and natural world.

I still marvel at the author’s ability to pull so many different stories, characters and themes into a cohesive narrative, with all the pieces fitting together at the end. You’ll find stories within stories – folktales and biblical references, spanning back five or so generations of this family and leading up to 2006. You’ll find yourself sometimes unsure of who the narrator is (sometimes the narrator is addressing you, the reader. Sometimes the narrator is addressing the characters. At one point, the narrator is even addressing the AUTHOR; sometimes the author inserts herself into the narrative “As sure as I write this…”), but – oddly, for me (a stickler for ‘rules’), that wasn’t an issue. It still ‘worked.’ And frankly, it was masterful!

I chose this book for our book club, so I anticipate a lot of whining when we discuss it on July 8– ha ha – regarding length, complexity of sentences, pacing … (I have mentioned in the past that I can forgive a book a multitude of sins if the sentences are dripping in rich description, if they transport me and if I can live in the skin of the characters, even if it may appear they “aren’t doing much.”) BUT I also am certain that this will be one of the books that generates the most discussion of any other books we’ve read. It’s that good. If my book club members come to the table disliking this book, I do believe I can win them over with MY love and appreciation of this novel and this author’s incredible talent. I believe I might have taken more notes on this book than any other I’ve ever read…

Read this book if 1) You’re into literary fiction and authors who use experimental/creative literary techniques 2) You don't need a plot that moves at breakneck speed from page one 3) You enjoy novels that tackle tough, tough moral issues and 4)You appreciate literary ambiguity that lets you draw your own conclusions. (Did I feel, at times, that an editor’s hand was needed to pare down some of the excessive descriptions? Yes. But did it detract from my overall feelings about this book? No! I want to go to Kentucky now, after the breathtaking descriptions.) Woo-wee … this one blew my socks off.

This book will make you think. In fact, I believe the author wrote with that intent, specifically. One line in the book states, "America has many ills, but none greater than the refusal of so many to think long and hard, to think critically. We must learn to be choosers, not merely receivers; to be self-critical; to cast a suspicious eye on the powers that be, including one's own unearned power. We want easy answers, but we must refuse them. The only true answer is to think." Yessss!

FINAL NOTE: I read the author’s slim debut, All the Living, which I adored. I will read ANYTHING this talented woman publishes. Check out Ms. Pegasus’s review for all the intriguing things I didn’t pick up on! I think this is one you could read and re-read and find new, hidden gems each time. ...more

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Jan 28, 2017 Amanda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audible

4.5 stars. The best book I've read this month. This was so close to 5 stars but that epilogue hmmm.

This is thankfully not a book about horse racing despite the title. It is a sweeping epic family story and a reckoning with the history of slavery in US. The horses are beautiful but they are just the backdrop. I will be carrying these characters around with me for a long time. ...more

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Mar 02, 2017 Elaine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

This book was an overwritten mess, which is a shame, because there were flashes of brilliance and some heartpoundingly page-turning passages. I get that this is Southern Gothic, and that the footsteps being followed are Faulkner's, but I was frustrated by the excess long before I reached the turgid melodramatic ending.

An early warning sign was the recurrence of esoteric vocabulary words. The first time I saw "karsty" (which may be an adjective that Morgan coined, I'm not sure), I had to read up ...more

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Jun 14, 2016 Roger Brunyate rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rural-america, race

Bloodstock: Overbred, Overwritten

C. E. Morgan can do some things supremely well. There is a scene about a quarter of the way through her new novel, set mainly on a Kentucky horse farm, where a stud stallion is brought in to cover a brood mare. The bringing together of two highly-strung animals, attracted by scent, and as likely to attack their handlers as each other, is a scene of gross violence made almost magnificent by the wildness of the writing in which Morgan describes it:

The enormous b

The enormous bay stallion rounded the wall of the breeding shed between his two handlers, his tremendous bulk eclipsing much of the early sunlight and casting the shed into abrupt shadow. As soon as the pliant musk of estrus reached his nostrils, he sank into his quarters, the muscles of his flanks trembling spasmodically, the phallus beginning to protrude from its sheath. His dished head traced small circles in the air as he eyed the mare. She, in turn, twisted away from the trammel of the lead shank to find him, her nostrils widening as her hooves danced on the tan-bark floor.

The scene, which takes six pages in all, is absolutely central not only to the working world of the book but also to its theme, which is the breeding of bloodstock, whether animal or human. Against all custom, the owner, Henry Forge, insists on being present too, further ratcheting up the tension. And he uses it as a lesson for his teenage daughter, Henrietta; that too is central to the theme.

Contrast a parallel scene, symmetrically placed in the later part of the novel. This is a birth—not the mare delivering her foal (though we see that too), but a human labor. It is not the actual scene I want to quote, but something from the dozen pages leading up to it, a bubbling cauldron of nightmare fantasy, history, philosophy, and brute realism [Warning: this quotation contains obscenities]:

Back in the halcyon days of her ignorance, her monthly period had been only a nuisance. Her pussy like something she had invented—sui generis. There's no business like my business! But, pregnancy shattered the illusion like so much cheap mercury glass. What differentiates man from animal is deferral of appetite. And here was the real silver that turned the blood blue: Each menstrual period was a bright reminder, a clotted reminder, a libation to the gods on behalf of every child unborn, those quietly waiting in the hidden place where the waiting gather. Woman was a tensile thing stretched taut between generations. So no fucking was casual and, further, there was no such thing as a free body in this world, our occasional choices laughably, infinitesimally rare. Each was born squalling and covered in blood with a bill coming due in her clenched hand, her tiny ovaries constellated with potential life, floating there in the warm, watery dark. The world, in fact, existed.

I have two reasons for quoting this scene; for now, I want to talk only about style, the flights of wild fancy that Morgan embarks on here and countless times elsewhere. She can certainly write, she knows she can write, and even when she mocks her tendency to overwrite, she does so with conscious pride in her own virtuosity:

Or is all this too purple, too florid? Is more too much—the world and the words? Or do you prefer your tales lean, muscular, and dry, leached of excess and honed to a single, digestible point? Have I exceeded the bounds of the form, committed a literary sin? I say there's no such thing—any striving is calcined ash before the heat of the ever-expanding world, its interminability and brightness, which is neither yours nor mine.

I almost abandoned the novel in its first pages, wondering if I could take the continued onslaught of overcolored epithets and baroque phrasing. But I persevered, and discovered that when the drama in her story is natural and organic—no matter how intense, as in the breeding shed—Morgan's language mostly keeps pace with it. For me, the strongest of the six parts was the third, the only one not set in Kentucky at all, about the coming of age of a black boy in Cincinnati in the 1990s. So real were his problems in losing his preacher grandfather, trying to care for his sick mother, and stay on the right side of the law, that the story needed no special help from the words; text fitted content like a glove. And even when the purple passages resumed, I recalled that other great writers whom I admire—William Faulkner, for instance—also used highly charged language. But Faulkner did it for a purpose, to give his writing epic scope, commensurate with the history of the American South and the original sin of slavery. Does Morgan have such a purpose too?

Yes, but it seems forced. The dozen or more pages of extreme writing leading up to that birth scene are there because the situation itself is extreme. Without giving away the plot, let me only say that no one knows whose child this will turn out to be. Of the two main possibilities, one is socially beyond the pale and the other is morally outrageous. Here again, I almost threw down the book in disgust—not at the behavior of the characters, but that the author would so blatantly engineer the situation to make her thematic point, and jack up the language so that the obscene would seem epic. She is no longer concerned with character and plausibility, but with the troubled history of a people, race, lineage… bloodstock, in short. Faulkner might have handled it, or Steinbeck in his melodramatic East of Eden mode. Morgan is not in their league, though you can see her trying to be.

Nowhere did the fundamental contradictions in the novel emerge more clearly than in the last 150 pages. There continue to be many exciting set-pieces for sure, including horse-race scenes that make even this non-aficionado rise to his feet in the stands. And the short final part contains moments of simple grace, as the baby changes the life of his grandfather in beautiful ways. But overlaid on it all is the sense of the author grabbing at the organ stops almost at random, to build a great crescendo out of words, words, words:

I am the devil's midwife, the Messiah come in shape no bigger than a black man's fist in the face of the Kentucky colonel man. Drawn darker than a stub of burnt cork, he straddles the black brain as it sleeps awake. His silks are sound from the pickers' jubilee; the fine helmet of the overseer's skull; reins from the braids of white bitch bitties; black boots from the flays of baying blackwater hounds; his crop snatched from the Southern whipping hand, its handle fashioned from fingers that when felled, grabbed up Mississippi mud like velvet cake.

And so on for forty lines. Sound familiar? It is in fact a version of Mercutio's Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet in the voice of a gay jockey drunk on his own words. But the transposition is more than showing off. It is part of Morgan's insistence that this is a Great American Novel about the most shameful subject of all, race. Although actually spanning only the lifetime of one man, Henry Forge, it has the referential scope of an epic, beginning with the first settlers coming over the Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap. It takes in the legacy of the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, urban poverty, police and prison abuses, and the 2001 Over-the-Rhine riots in Cincinnati. It even retells the story of Adam and Eve, with further reference to Cain and Abel, Ham, and Ishmael. I understand that Morgan wants this to be a big book, but the further she goes to prove her point, the further she gets from the natural working-out of her story in terms of character and human feeling. It works so long as you keep believing in the grand manner. But once you lose that belief, forget Faulkner; the novel's plunge into total tragedy at the end will just seem like the arbitrary melodrama of Southern Gothic at its worst. ...more

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Feb 02, 2017 jo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, boozy-brawling-boys

this book is supposedly only 500 something pages, but it took me more than three weeks to get through the audiobook. phew. i am so very happy i did, except for (view spoiler).

it's not many women writers who take it upon themselves to write such sprawling, male histories of the country, or, as they are called if men write them, Great American Novels, so major props to morgan for courage and vision.

also, it's not many white this book is supposedly only 500 something pages, but it took me more than three weeks to get through the audiobook. phew. i am so very happy i did, except for (view spoiler).

it's not many women writers who take it upon themselves to write such sprawling, male histories of the country, or, as they are called if men write them, Great American Novels, so major props to morgan for courage and vision.

also, it's not many white people who tackle race so head-on, and, above all, put the spotlight on whiteness. i can't think of any white american author other than c.e. morgan who has written a book about whiteness. it would have been better in my opinion if she had analyzed whiteness more and blackness less. lots of black authors analyze blackness but, as i said, whiteness seems pretty much a non-race in our collective mind, which makes it of course not a subject for analysis. it is strong and brave to delve deeply in what it means to be white. (whiteness is as much a race as blackness is and not, as all of us sort of think, some with more qualms than others, the default way of being human).

the first part of this sprawling novel is about how white farmers drifting on the large empty american land in the 18th century, looking for a place to settle down and make a living, turn into revered patriarchs and founders of a noble lineage of blue-bloodedness at the end of the 20th (actually a lot sooner). the name, the name! the blood line, the blood line! this name and this blood line are naturally earned over the unpaid toil and silent violation of countless black bodies.

the second part is about a black family in cincinnati -- mostly about how if you are black you don't get a chance, ever. in fact, any chance you get is automatically zapped and trampled on and taken away from you in as demeaning, brutal, and definitive way as possible.

this second part is long and the story within may not have been morgan's to tell. i prefer to read about the endless suffering of black folks from black folks, for all sorts of reasons not the least of which is that it should be black storytellers who put their names on the book's cover and reap the royalties from the stories of their vilified and downtrodden ancestors. also, a black author is living proof that misery and blackness are not automatically conjoined, which they are not, and not, and not. the myth of the poor negro may move hearts but does not encourage change.

having said this, though, i need to say also that morgan is a fantastic writer, quite in control of her subject matter, and immensely gifted with language, erudition, and originality. even though this books received great accolades, i don't see her buying herself a loft in manhattan with the profits from it any time soon. in fact, the book is written quite esoterically and strangely, and it is truly a labor of love. (its daring language, length, and handling of material reminded me a little of Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies).

horse racing, the novel's ostensible subject matter, comes in only at the end, and works more as an extended metaphor for inbreeding, pure bloodedness, and bloodedness in general than as a subject in its own merit. it is however dealt with in a lovely and sensitive way, and if you like horses and don't hate horse racing enough to be unable to read about it, this book will please you.

i would have given The Sport of Kings an enthusiastic five star rating were it not for (view spoiler) other than that, this is quite a fascinating and gorgeous work of literature. ...more

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May 12, 2016 Kath rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book is offensive. I can only hope the reader will read past his or her objections. It is offensive to blacks, to monied whites, to animal rights activists, to horse-racing enthusiasts, to atheists, to Christians, to hillbillies and a combination of any or all of the above. I loved every minute of it. This book gets in your face and into your brain. Morgan takes Homeric and idyllic pastoral scenes to an entirely new level in the modern novel. The writing is lush, but accurate to every detai ...more

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May 09, 2017 Maria Hill AKA MH Books rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, historical-fiction, audible, usa

This book has split me in two.

I love it: Its is a 4.5 star.
Look there is some beautiful writing here. For example there is a stunning scene where one of the female protagonists has sex with a stranger in the back seat of a car during a rain storm. The two family sagas are intriguing too with an interesting twist or two at the end.

I hate it. It should be a DNF and does not even deserve a single star.
Unfortunately, at there is at least two hundred pages of complete self- indulgent, convoluted, ...more

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Mar 22, 2016 Mike rated it liked it · review of another edition

Got about a hundred pages into this and just couldn't take any more of the grim, dour characters. Even the livelier ones are soured somehow.
The writing is good, though perhaps there's just too much of a good thing with it at times, as though the author finds a wondrous turn of phrase and can't bear not to add it to the other similar phrases, and the characters are well drawn enough. But everyone's so gloomy.
Just not interested in spending any more of my precious reading time with them all. ...more

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Jul 13, 2017 Krista rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017

All roads have led to you, Henry, and I won't have you throw everything away for a heap of rhinestones. I'm a planter's son, and you're a planter's son. There is no need for improvement, Henry, only adherence to a line that has never altered, because it's never proven unsound.

The Sport of Kings is a tough book to get my mind around: It is big and weighty, so interesting at the sentence level and ambitious in scope – Is there ever anything more topical in America than class and race and the c ...more

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Apr 06, 2017 Erica rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dead-friends-and-family, family-saga, historical-fiction, audiobook, daddies-and-daughters, racism, real-life-fiction, animals, men-and-boys, women-and-girls

Read because: 2017 finalist for Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction

This story is…
....masterfully written.
....going to piss a lot of people off.
….a book that white people go nuts over, hailing it as literary genius as it deftly and sometimes graphically shows all the horrible things white privilege does to both white people and black. Feel sorry for us white folk, trying so hard to get woke with little to no success.
….not going to escape the criticisms heaped upon The Help and The Secret Life of B Read because: 2017 finalist for Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction

This story is…
....masterfully written.
....going to piss a lot of people off.
….a book that white people go nuts over, hailing it as literary genius as it deftly and sometimes graphically shows all the horrible things white privilege does to both white people and black. Feel sorry for us white folk, trying so hard to get woke with little to no success.
….not going to escape the criticisms heaped upon The Help and The Secret Life of Bees.
….not as horse-laden as one may have been lead to believe (thank goodness, I was dreading that part).
…intentionally pretentious.
….long, long-winded, and just super long. Have I mentioned how very long this is? It's long.
....a sweeping family saga in the American South but not gothic. Well, maybe a smidgen gothic.

As for the audiobook, I don’t think I liked having a white guy narrating this. In a strange turn of opinions, I would have preferred this to be read by a cast, not a single narrator. I suppose this narrator could have kept Henry Forge's parts but he mispronounces words and he doesn’t have the right accents so, maybe not.
I'm not saying the narrator is bad. He'd be great for other books. I just didn't like him for this one.

So this book has some problems. It's long (I may have mentioned that already), it's written with so much arrogance but, then, that seems to have been the point. It's trite but the cliches, themselves, are symbols. It's offensive but not unrealistic. Except for when it is unrealistic and then it's a different kind of offensive.

I actually enjoyed the story a great deal and I appreciated the over-the-top writing and the self-indulgent moments of author speaking to herself. I liked the overall framework and the tidy tying-up of loose ends.
But I didn't love any of it. It's ponderous, I wanted it to be done already, and the things I mentioned liking above were also awfully irritating.

This isn't a beach read. Well, I mean, of course you can read this on a beach if you want. But it takes some concentration so if you are at the beach with people who will demand your attention, probably read something lighter and easier to follow and save this one for when you have vast swaths of alone time on hand. ...more

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May 19, 2017 Ms.pegasus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Ms.pegasus by: N.Y. Times recommended book

Shelves: fiction, history

Morgan's novel is set in the Ohio-Kentucky borderland bisected by the Ohio River. To the north lies Cincinnati, a free-state beacon in antebellum times. To the south lies the rich farmland of Kentucky, a de facto slave state. Metaphor has glossed over so much of this area's complicated history. Cincinnati was the Queen City, surrounded like Rome, by seven hills. Kentucky is the blue grass state, an appellation that distances it from reminders of slave labor's importance in its history. As for th ...more

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Dec 30, 2016 Jessica Sullivan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 5-stars, literary-fiction

This powerful, epic work of macro fiction has all the makings of a classic novel. I’ll be honest: at first I could barely muster the interest to start reading it. A 550-page book about horse racing? Nah, not for me. But The Sport of Kings is so much more than it appears to be: beneath the surface, it’s a sweeping examination of racism and classism in America.

At the center of this ambitious novel is the Forge family, one of Kentucky’s oldest and most powerful dynasties. As a young boy in the midd This powerful, epic work of macro fiction has all the makings of a classic novel. I’ll be honest: at first I could barely muster the interest to start reading it. A 550-page book about horse racing? Nah, not for me. But The Sport of Kings is so much more than it appears to be: beneath the surface, it’s a sweeping examination of racism and classism in America.

At the center of this ambitious novel is the Forge family, one of Kentucky’s oldest and most powerful dynasties. As a young boy in the middle of the 20th century, Henry Forge is taught by his father that “man is the measure of all things” and that “real knowledge begins with knowing your place in the world.” Much to his father’s chagrin, Henry is intent on altering his family’s legacy. He has greater ambitions than growing corn; instead, he becomes obsessed with breeding the next Secretariat, and years later he enlists his daughter, Henrietta, to help.

Henry and Henrietta are each given entire sections of the book—and they’re fascinating characters. But there’s another key person at the heart of their story: Allmon Shaughnessy, the biracial groom Henrietta hires (without consulting her father) to help them with their horses. While the Forges have a deep history of wealth and racism, Allmon carries with him the wounds of being a poor black man in a country that seems hellbent on tearing him down. Inevitably, they converge in a myriad of complex ways that build to a tragic denouement.

This isn’t a quick, easy read. It’s dense and it’s demanding and it requires a significant investment—and yet it’s ceaselessly compelling. Morgan is smarter than most of us—and to the delight of a reader like myself who enjoys being challenged intellectually and emotionally, she isn’t afraid to show it. She quotes Darwin and Protagoras. She doesn’t give us easy answers or tidy resolutions.

Although it takes place in modern times, we learn about the Forge’s history as slaveowners and the tragic story of Allmon’s great-great-great-grandfather, an escaped slave. And through all of this is a sense that the characters have fixed destinies—a fatalism from which they are each desperate to liberate themselves. Horse racing is about lineage, and so, too, is the story beneath the surface in The Sport of Kings. But people aren’t animals, and their lineage is more than just biology and genetics; it’s history and circumstance, both familial and sociological. ...more

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May 11, 2016 Mike W rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In the novel’s opening scene, a young Henry Forge, guilty of killing a neighbor’s bull, breathlessly sprints through a cornfield in an attempt to hide from his father and avoid the coming reckoning. I couldn’t help but think of Genesis and Adam, the first to try the same for having committed the original sin. In some sense, the scene is a microcosm of the novel; the book portending a reckoning for America’s original sin of slavery.

Henry Forge has a name. His father, the latest in a long line of In the novel’s opening scene, a young Henry Forge, guilty of killing a neighbor’s bull, breathlessly sprints through a cornfield in an attempt to hide from his father and avoid the coming reckoning. I couldn’t help but think of Genesis and Adam, the first to try the same for having committed the original sin. In some sense, the scene is a microcosm of the novel; the book portending a reckoning for America’s original sin of slavery.

Henry Forge has a name. His father, the latest in a long line of austere, corn farming, Forges drives this principle into Henry daily. That Forge name is everything, representing generations of men who feel they have earned the land upon which they till, the servants they have owned or employed, the respect of their peers, and their massive wealth. When a teen-aged Henry tells his father that he plans to to convert the family farm into one for the breeding of thoroughbreds his father becomes nearly apoplectic. The family name is everything, and horse breeding is beneath them. Henry sticks to his plan, and when the farm is his, he follows his dream.

Allmon Shaughnessy has a name as well, but it only goes back one generation: his white father who left his black mother alone and in the ghetto in Cincinnati. She works hard, but her employer doesn’t give her health benefits, and when medical problems arise, unable to afford the treatments she needs, she and Allmon must descend the housing ladder until they find themselves in the worst of neighborhoods where drugs and violence reign. Allmon does know his grandfather, from whom his mother is somewhat estranged and he vaguely knows the name of a distant relative, Scipio, from the days of slavery, whose name but not his story has been passed down and thus has largely lost its significance as far as Allmon is concerned.

The paths of these two men, Henry and Allmon, cross when Henry’s only child, Henrietta Forge hires Allmon to work with their thoroughbreds. Henrietta is one who has learned to take what she wants, and Allmon finds himself in her crosshairs. When Henry learns of their relationship, the racism inculcated in him by his long line of hate filled forefathers comes to the fore and since he cannot solve the problem with the violence that they once used, he determines to end their tryst with the ultimate weapon in the family arsenal: money. Allmon strikes a deal with Mr Forge that he believes will free him from the cage of his history but soon learns there is much more to that deal than either of them realized.

If history and legacy are the vehicles to success in America, then thoroughbred horse racing may be their perfect symbol. The Forge’s have an obsession with bloodlines, thus the genetics involved in their equine investments is tailor made; they know who begat whom in the racing world as well as any biblical scholar knows the same in the Torah. These lines determine ultimate success, and any creature born outside of them is an also ran at best. Through these creatures, C.E. Morgan holds a mirror to American society and seems to ask just how much things have functionally changed since its founding.

All that being said, there are two things you should know. First, the above summary is about as simple a description of the novel that I can muster and second, there is absolutely nothing simple about this novel. Like its fictional filly Hellsmouth, it's a massive, muscular intelligent beast. This is a complex story with so many symbols and interwoven plot points that one reading likely cannot do it justice. I had several moments during this reading experience where I was in awe of Morgan’s ability to tie massive amounts of information together, reminiscent of Melville. She is a talent of whom I had not heard but from whom I now have the highest of expectations.

Morgan has created a world with immensely interesting characters, some likable, some despotic, but all beautifully crafted. Perhaps none is more interesting though than Reuben Bedford Walker III a 5’ 2” openly gay, black jockey who only appears in the final quarter of the novel but manages to steal the show. His dialog is a masterpiece on its own and he would be at home on the deck of the Pequod, on the stage at the Globe and of course on the track. Besides being incredibly entertaining, he also proves important to the story, delivering unforgettable history lessons.

The Sport of Kings demonstrates Morgan's tremendous range. Able to discuss a stunning number of topics and ideas, she seems comfortable and competent with them all, from complex human emotions to genetic science she proves an able facilitator of the ideas important to her stories.

So, are we bound by our past; our biology, our history? Is personal freedom ultimately an illusion? Or has America progressed enough that these things no longer have the impact on our destiny that they once did? The Sport of Kings takes on these questions and so many more. It is rarely a comfortable read, there is rape, incest, lynching and no shortage of other cruelties, but in spite of all that it is a worthwhile read for its honest look at an America still divided in so many important ways.

Note: I received a free ARC via NetGalley for the purpose of review. ...more

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May 31, 2017 Jonathan Pool rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-lit

If you are white, and male, the Sport of Kings makes for uncomfortable reading at times. C.E Morgan has written a novel in which women and black people are subject to the worst humiliations and injustices.
Of men: ”The truth is that men aren't interested in your happiness; they'll make you think that's the case, they'll treat you really great for a while and make all sorts of promises and give you all their attention, but they reach a point where they can't pretend anymore. They're just selfish If you are white, and male, the Sport of Kings makes for uncomfortable reading at times. C.E Morgan has written a novel in which women and black people are subject to the worst humiliations and injustices.
Of men: ”The truth is that men aren't interested in your happiness; they'll make you think that's the case, they'll treat you really great for a while and make all sorts of promises and give you all their attention, but they reach a point where they can't pretend anymore. They're just selfish animals, and in the end, animals can't hide their nature. ” (117)

The question is whether this sustained racial and sexual polemic strays into the realms of stereotype.
I don’t think it does, and there’s much to like and to admire in Sport of Kings.
C.E. Morgan is an ambitious writer. Her language is rich; she describes the natural world (Darwin a significant influence one suspects) beautifully, and her knowledge of and use of obscure/unusual words is impressive. The book centres on the “Bluegrass” region of Kentucky - the meadow-land of Eastern America.
Other reviewers have said that the thought of reading over five hundred pages of writing on equine matters was not an enticing prospect. That was my advance view too, judging the title and the book cover. But Sport of Kings is only about horses and bloodstock breeding in a passing, and secondary, way. Sport of Kings does examine breeding, does ask questions about natural selection, of random selection, both of animals, and people. Sometimes the conclusions and outcomes are warped and deeply disappointing. Horse breeding as an industry is not spared the writers reproach.

Sport of Kings follows two primary characters; Allmon Shaughnessey and Henrietta Forge. Both characters are deeply flawed, both are inhibited by their childhoods and upbringing, and both, in different ways, convey the inevitability that the passage through life is harsh. As I read the book I never anticipated happy endings.
C.E. Morgan does undertake a number of digressions from the storyline. These are musings about nature, the immutability of things; the transitory nature of the human condition. Is this merely an author’s indulgence? As a contrast to the developing narrative, the sweeping, reflective literary device can be frustrating; but I found C.E. Morgan’s prose lyrical and evocative during these “Interludes” (her description). The writing style is obviously designed to be in marked contrast to the deliberately brutish descriptive terms reserved for people’s actions, and emotions.
C.E. Morgan’s writing is full of clever and apposite one liners:
A mother to her daughter “”men like naïve girls, and there’s a reason for that” (102). (a smart, worldly woman won’t put up with men’s vanities and weakness).
One man to another: “Hate you? I don't even remember your name” (367)
Sport of Kings juxtaposes the freshness and freedom of the natural world with the perennial bitterness of men. Hurt and betrayal engendered over many years, through generations, does not dissipate quickly, if at all.
Sport of Kings has been a nominee for a number of literary prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2017. I would like it to win the Baileys prize for Women’s literature, while feeling that it deserves to be recognised on a larger, wider, platform.
...more

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Aug 10, 2017 Alice Lippart rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017, historical-fiction

Enjoyed this very much. Fascinating characters, even though they're often horrendous. ...more

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May 28, 2017 Gumble's Yard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, 2017-baileys-shortlist, 2017-baileys-longlist

Henry Forge is heir to a Kentucky farm, descended from the first settlers in the area, and son of a beautiful but mute mother and a fiercely proud, patrician and fundamentally racist and sexist father who disinherits him (unsuccessfully) when Henry declares his intention to convert the farm from crops to racehorses.

Most of the book of the book is set years later as Henry and his unmarried daughter Henrietta pursue Henry’s dream of breeding a triple-crown winning racehorse from the bloodline of ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Jeanette rated it really liked it

Some parts of this book were superb and nearly all of those most poetic/ lyrical were in regards to the animal, the thoroughbred horse. It follows a specific section of the country in Kentucky settled by the Forge family and the century plus that follows. Hard people who with Henry's dictation change the corn and other crop onus of the Forge land to that of raising/ developing genetic horse lines used in the sport of thoroughbred racing. The Sport of Kings. Obsessed to obtain and all sacrifices ...more

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Jan 04, 2016 Chris Blocker rated it it was amazing

An impressive epic, The Sport of Kings runs strong. Despite focusing on horse racing and farming of the last century, Morgan's second novel is extremely relevant for today's tumultuous American landscape. With gorgeous prose, realistic characters, and a story that never stays stagnant for long, Morgan has crafted a winning novel, entertaining and intelligent.

I'm not one for horse racing. I don't even like horses—I've always found them to be frighteningly alien in appearance. But when this novel ...more

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May 31, 2017 Jaclyn Crupi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I delayed reading this book for the longest time primarily because of the horse racing. This book isn't about horse racing of course but it does contain a lot (read too much) about horses and horse racing. It's about rage and 'spoiled inbred racist motherfuckers'. I admired so much about this book and its epic sprawling storytelling. Morgan's ability to examine racism, ambition, privilege, the legacies of slavery, the role and treatment of women and the mythology of the South while rendering a p ...more

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About C.E. Morgan

C.E. Morgan

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C.E. Morgan (b. 1976) is an American author. She won the 2016 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, among other honors.

As an undergraduate, Morgan studied voice at Berea College, a tuition-free labor college for students from poor and working-class backgrounds in Appalachia. In exchange for a free education, all students work for the college while enrolled. Morgan also attended Harvard Divinity Schoo ...more

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Quotes from Le sport des rois

“She thought soon all the land would sound like nothing, and no one would know it had once made sounds, that small civilizations had thrived in the grass. It would never register with life again. And what was coming? Concrete. Glassed fronts and sale signs and cash registers. And with it all, people in a torrential surge, carnivorous men and women looking to smear their skin with colors and creams, to bleach their hair, to shave their hides, to cinch themselves breathless in order to think themselves beautiful.” — 9 likes

“Everything comes from everything and nothing escapes commonality. I am building a house already built, you are bearing a child already born. Everything comes from everything: a single cell out of another single cell; the cherry tree blossoms from the boughs; the hunter's aim from his arm; the rivers from tributaries from streams from falls from springs from wells; the Christ thorns out of the honey locust; a word from an ancient word, this book from many books; the tiny black bears out of their durable mothers tumbling from dark lairs; eightieth-generation wild crab abloom again and again and again; your hand out of your father's; firstborn out of firstborn out of firstborn out of; the weeping willows and the heart leaf, the Carolina, the silky, the upland, the sandbar willows; every tart berry; our work, which disappears; our mothers' whispers, which disappear; every Thoroughbred; every violet; every kindling twig, bone out of bone; also the heat lightborne, the pollen airborne, the rabbits soft and crickets all angles and the glossy snakes from their slithering, inexhaustible mothers, freshly terrible. When you die, you will contribute your bones like alms. More and more is the only law.” — 5 likes

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