What an excellent summary of the paintings ! Thank you, @mary13 for this excellent documentation of those paintings.
I thought it meaningful that the painting given to May, the one Jarrett said to sell it if she ever needed money, was eventually sold to fund the maids son, medical school education, which would change the trajectory of that family’s lineage. Education the equalizer.
Also, @ignatius thank you for your very thorough summary of your irl book club’s discussion of this book!
Martha Jackson was a real American gallery owner and art collector. Discuss her portrayal in HORSE and what her relationship to the painting of Lexington conveys about her character. What does her storyline contribute to the novel’s themes? What did her chapters reveal to you about America in that era, and did you notice any similarities between the art world of the mid-20th century and the horse racing economy of a century prior?
The dust jacket talked about the art dealer and I was surprised how long it took before she made an appearance and then how little space she took up. I can see the echoes of finding something while it’s cheap and nurturing the talent, but I’m not really seeing how nurturing his (Jackson Pollock’s) talent (or ultimately aiding in his death by providing him a sexy car) really added significantly to the story. I do get that Brooks wanted to account for the painting. The whole three separate timelines thing reminded me a bit of Cloud Cuckoo Land, where the love of a horse (or a painting of the horse) unites all the storylines.
Sorry I did a post and run last weekend. I just read all the comments and really appreciate the discussion. You guys are awesome! I love the different points of view. I really expected you to elevate my understanding of the book and you haven’t disappointed.
Congratulations on your new grandchild, @ignatius !
I agree. This is why I questioned Brooks perspective. As a white person it is impossible to completely understand a black person’s perspective. I definitely give Brooks points for taking on a very difficult writing task.
Thanks for sharing the Brooks interview, @jerseysouthmomchess . These are the gems I love seeing in this bookclub!
@Mary13 , thank you for the painting summary!!
@Mary13 Thank you for sorting this out – and for tracking down the paintings!
The painting info was helpful. I too was quite confused over which painting was which. Started to think it was on purpose to keep the reader guessing (maybe we watch too much Silent Witness and other crime dramas).
Thanks, @jerseysouthmomchess and @mathmom for that information about Brooks’s son. And to @Mary13 for the complete paintings inventory! I was visiting an art museum the other day, and I found myself noticing all the paintings of horses.
Another thing I really liked about the book was the use of historical people to tell the story, and the little biographies at the end. I looked up Martha Jackson–I knew that Jackson Pollock had died in a crash, but I didn’t realize the story about trading her car for paintings was real.
One question about Mary Clay. When we were visiting family in Richmond, we drove around the area, and walked around the grounds of White Hall, where Mary’s family lived (though her mother greatly expanded the house later). It’s in Richmond. Yet she always seemed to be at The Meadows in Lexington–and they aren’t close! Did she and her family live with Dr. Warfield a lot of the time, or was it just written that way for convenience? (I didn’t find Mary Clay a very believable character–a little too white savior plucky for me.)
And thanks for the info on that Keeneland exhibit, @2VU0609. On that same visit to Lexington, we visited Keeneland. No racing that day, unfortunately, just a sad bunch of men drinking and betting. But we got to see the beautiful grounds and track! The seemingly endless fields of horses in Lexington were so lovely.
@ignatius Congratulations on the new grandchild! I’m very sorry about the loss of your friend. @oldmom4896 I’m glad you’re feeling better!
Congrat on the grandchild and I’m so sorry for your loss.
If the Martha Jackson chapters had not been included, I would not have missed them. But I think their presence enhances the book rather than detracts from it. Artworks, their provenance, and their power to affect people through time, is a running motif in Horse.
I thought the juxtaposition of Jackson Pollock and Thomas Scott highlighted the disparate ways that art is created and the wide spectrum of results.
Scott paints in painstaking detail, with brushes, carefully separated paints, and primarily one subject: “All I know is horses, their muscle and bone” (p. 71).
He watched Scott fill his left hand with six or eight different brushes and wondered why so many, until he figured it: one brush for each small puddle of color to keep each tone clean and pure, unmuddied with another. He saw how Scott worked on the whole painting, not just a corner of it, dabbing here, there, farther down. Nose, back, tail. Change brush, new color. Hocks, mane, haunches. Change brush, new color. Hoof, poll, withers. Change brush, new color (p.43).
Jackson Pollock on the other hand:
The paint sailed through the air, silky and billowing, splashing onto the canvas in an emphatic diagonal…He swilled the drink and without looking slammed the glass back onto the table. It hit the edge, shattering. Martha flinched. Glass shards shimmered on the canvas. He crouched and ran his hand right over the slivers, grinding them into the paint. Blood now joined the riot of color coruscating over the black-primed linen: crimson drips and smears amid the yellow, the silver, the filaments of white. And slashing across it all, the march of those aggressive blue exclamations.
Pollock’s paintings would have been dismissed as ludicrous in 1850, and Scott’s work was relegated to a trash heap in 2019. Scott is pretty mellow and Pollock is full of “violent theatrics.” But at their creative core, maybe they’re not so different. Martha observes of Pollock’s painting: "What had seemed out of control and random was nothing of the sort. The painting was tightly composed, a movement from the dark ground of the primer up through the agitation of color and line.”
Jarret has a similar feeling when he watches Scott’s painting take shape: “He saw how for Glacier’s white coat, Scott used barely any white at all, but pinks and mauves and lively grays in pale washes, layer after layer. Yet in the end, a white horse stood there: Glacier, looking fly.”
Until your comments, @Mary13, I hadn’t thought about the juxtaposition of Scott and Pollock’s art! In addition to the history, time period, and provenance of their works, the book also deals with the “provenance” of horses (Jarret going over lineages with his father, Lexington ending up as a champion stud), and of people, particularly in slavery (the chapter headings indicating Jarret’s owners–but not, until his last chapter, his last name). All three types of “provenance” connect and weave through the story.
Yay, me! 2:15 a.m. and I finished Horse. Quite a bit happens in those last chapters.
I like Horse. I go back to @Mary13’s post that started the discussion on April 1:
The reason I didn’t finish Horse in a more timely manner stems from the fact that I read it before turning out the light each night. Invariably I ended up closing the book after a section that left me more than a “little dispirited.” Not a great way to head to sleep. I resolved to read Horse in snatches during the day for that reason, but my days have been busy.
Overall, though, I’m glad I read the book, despite having little to no interest in horses - unlike some of you. I bet that added to your enjoyment of the book.
@mary13 wonderful post! Love how you found, compared and contrasted Brooks’ descriptions of artistic styles,
Agree including Martha Jackson, and the tangential story of Jackson Polluck’s death were awkward, clumsy, Brooks trying to jam in all her factual tidbits, but as you say, reading the bios at the end, it made her mosaic of Horse complete!!
I have a question about something and not sure how Brooks meant it,
When Jess took the picture to the mean neighbor lady, she made a comment about receiving the picture, and it made me wonder.
She said something like, “ oh thanks for thr picture….he (Theo) was nice for a……….”
Slight pause
“Student”
Did Brooks want us to realize her bias was towards “ students” not because of “ race” .
Or
Did neighbor lady correct herself, and she needed that pause?
I think Brooks was clever wiht that response, just not sure what she meant, 
Having just finished the book last night, Theo’s neighbor pauses when Jess shouts: “Shut up! Don’t say it.” Jess turns and runs as the neighbor finishes her remark “for a student” to Jess’s back. Jess obviously thinks racial bias but I’m not so sure. Maybe …
Yet Theo’s neighbor makes certain that “Given in memory of Theodore Naade Northam” appears with the painting at the museum. She makes that a “condition of the sale” when she sells the painting to the donor. So … maybe not.
Maybe Brooks just wants us to think … period.
I thought the woman corrected herself because she was going to say his race. IMO grad students are not like undergrads. They are much less likely to be partying and being a nuisance. Actually, I was trying to figure out where there would be a “shabby row house” across from Georgetown’s graduate housing. It turns out Georgetown is building lots of student housing because DC is so expensive. I felt like if he were in student housing, he was that UNLIKELY (corrected that!) to be getting to know non-student neighbors, knowing who had died etc.
That’s how I interpreted it as well – that she was trying to express appreciation but her innate racism emerged and she caught herself just in time. That scene–and the “in memory of” stipulation–suggests that the publicity around Theo’s death had led his neighbor to do some soul-searching and mend her ways. The cynic in me doesn’t really buy it though. I wish people changed their mindsets upon hearing horrible, heart-breaking news stories, but some prejudices are too ingrained.
I’d like to think that while she may remain wary, that she won’t jump to conclusions quite so quickly. I admit that I truly believe most people want to be good.
I agree with @mathmom:
I’d like to think that while she may remain wary, that she won’t jump to conclusions quite so quickly. I admit that I truly believe most people want to be good.
Yes, exactly.
Certainly Jess thinks the neighbor is on the verge of saying race when she yells at her to shut up. Doubtless Theo would have expected it. I wondered if the neighbor said “student” while thinking “race” but the dedication on the painting at the museum made me less sure. Regardless of whether or not the neighbor meant a word other than “student” when referring to Theo, I’m glad the painting ends where it does with the wording it has. I left that chapter feeling that Jarrett would have been pleased that despite the ugliness of its travels that it ends in the right place alongside Lexington.
(The sections with Theo’s dog broke my heart. I never doubted that Jess would adopt him but still.)
I felt pretty sure the neighbor was going to say race and changed her mind at the last minute. As far as dedicating the painting in Theo’s memory, my hope is that his kindness to her made her look more closely at her own prejudices. I’m choosing to believe she felt a great amount of shame and did the right thing by honoring Theo’s honesty and kindness.
@ignatius it must have been interesting reading the book after the two book discussions about it, sometimes it makes for more enjoyable reading knowing more about a story.
Yes, for sure the topic of horses, art and art history and the (historic basis of the story) appealed to me, plus Brooks writing style! Those bios at the end, things or people I thought were fiction, like Cassius Clay, or the raid,for instance, sealed the five star rating.
Congrats, @ignatius on this birth of your 4th grandchild! Much to celebrate!
Interestingly enough, while I already knew about Theo, I still felt shocked reading it.
