The Sport of Kings: A Novel by C.E. Morgan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Sport of Kings was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2017, and it has a horse on the cover. These two things compelled me to purchase and read it immediately. However, I had no idea what I was in for. This novel is simply torrential. After finishing the last page, I sat there stupefied on my couch and then sobbed for a full twenty minutes. The story is layered with generations of shame, filled with imprisonment both physical and mental, and a study in the exploitation that comes with corrupted understandings of parenthood, race, gender, nature, and self. The story is terrible and gorgeous as a tyrant. I am in absolute awe of C. E. Morgan, even though her indelible writing obliterated my heart.
This review is inadequate, but luckily Jaimy Gordon wrote a far better one for The New York Times for your consideration.