Longlisted for the Orange Prize 2012
Published by Quercus
I like it best when fiction takes me to new unfamiliar worlds and Jaimy Gordon’s novel set in and around a small-time racing track in West Virginia did just that. Taught me an awful lot about the background and pressures, despite the fact that I hadn’t got a clue what was going on in the first 50 pages or so, due to the dialect and slang. Once my “ear” was atuned, however, I fair *cough* raced through it.
Tommy Hansel has a plan. By entering his unknown horses in races for which they are overqualified, he hopes to bag himself a few winners and some easy money. However, life is rarely so simple and never so when the owner is as unstable as his horses. Plus there are gangsters who consider Indian Mound Downs racetrack to be their private money press. Fortunately Tommy has his girlfriend, Maggie, to keep her eye out for him, and the chief groom and trainer, Medicine Ed, but there are some hard lessons to be learned.
The novel follows the trajectory of Tommy and Maggie’s learning curve. How soon will they realise where they stand in the picking order? In which direction they’re headed? (Answer: down. Just look at the examples of Medicine Ed and Deucey, the gypsy woman who faces disaster whenever she overstretches herself by owning/part owning more than one horse.) When will Tommy and Maggie learn that this is a hard-nosed business with no room for sentimentality? That ruin and madness inevitably follow if they become emotionally attached to their animals.
It is to be hoped that they can pick up on the undercurrents of a fixed race in time to save their lives …
The novel is structured in 5 sections, each centring on the story of one horse and his human entourage. The Lord of Misrule, that harbinger of chaos, is mentioned throughout, finally making his appearance in the final section and the climactic race, the outcome of which is predetermined or is it?
Even if I still couldn’t translate all the dialect, and was sickened by the perverse nature of Tommy and Maggie’s sex life, I kept reading. Gordon, who knows her stuff, having once worked for three years in the racing industry, paints a convincing, if unglamorous portrait of life on the racetrack. As the pages turned, my reading speed progressed from trot to canter until I was positively gallopping along. Normally when confronted with such bleak seediness, I stop, but the cast of colourful characters and, in places, the unexpected black humour, particularly in the final furlong of that final race, ensured that against the Orange longlistees I’ve read to date, Lord of Misrule wins not by a nose, but by some distance.
I like it as well when I’m taken to unfamiliar territory. Not sure about the slang though, how would it be for me to read it.
I’m not big on horse racing books but it sounds different from the ususal fare. I’m intrigued.
I’m a big fan of horse racing & I certainly thought she got the atmosphere right. However, I disliked all of the characters which made it difficult for me to really enjoy the book. I had thought of it as a potential one for the short list but I’m not so sure now.
My review of this will go up on Saturday. I admit that I was not as convinced as you, but I know that this was a matter of personal taste and not so much of quality of the book. I can see how this book has a lot of quality, but the seediness just was not for me. Whereas I did enjoy the rest of the novel better than the first 50 pages (those were so confusing!) it simply was not for me.
I’m glad to hear that the book is hard to get into, as I half-heartedly started it twice and failed to get past page two (deciding later would be better.) I am determined to read this one (finally!), so I’m glad to read a positive review of it.
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Nice review! I liked the way you applied the horse-racing metaphor to your own reading of the book. I might try this one – I hate horse-racing, but it sounds as if there’s plenty more to the book than that. I can’t believe it’s Orange longlist time already! Soon it’ll be the shortlist, and then the announcement, and I still won’t have got around to reading most of them!