My blood boiled as I read John Forge’s statements, one being – “ I wouldn’t say that they’re (women) naturally intellectually inferior, as the Negroes are. The novel touches on strong and relevant themes of patriarchy, racism and history of slavery in the South. But with such a flawed family history, each character lives a life of misery, paying their debts. The story is then about the white man and the black man, both trying to make a name for themselves in the world, while trying to breed the perfect race horse. He ends up in jail and finally arrives at the Forge farm looking for a job. Allmon is the offspring of a white farmer and a black mother who was abandoned to raise the child on her own in Cincinnati. Through Henrietta, the Forge family story gets linked with Allmon Shaughnessy’s family history. He expects his daughter Henrietta to become his partner and successor in the quest for the perfect racehorse and to uphold the family legacy. Young Henry Forge, rebelling against his dominant father (John Forge), decides to transform his family’s plantation into a racing horse breeding farm. The Sport of Kings is a family saga of the Forge family who are wealthy whites in Kentucky.
And the answer being that I kept trying to see the novel’s merit that got itself a place in the Baileys shortlist, 2017 seems to be a weak excuse. The question of why I read this book still baffles me. The Sport of Kings is shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction this year.
A family saga about race, family legacy, horse breeding, slavery and the lives that got intertwined in between these man-made boundaries.
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