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by C. E. Morgan
A spiraling tale of wealth and poverty, racism and rage, The Sport of Kings is an unflinching portrait of lives cast in shadow by the enduring legacy of slavery. A vital new voice, C. E. Morgan has given life to a tale as mythic and fraught as the South itself - a moral epic for our time.
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 black man, comes to work on their farm after a stint in prison, the violence of the Forges' history and the exigencies of appetite are brought starkly into view. Entangled by fear, prejudice, and lust, the three tether their personal dreams of glory to the speed and grace of Hellsmouth.
"Starred Review. Vaultingly ambitious, thrillingly well-written, charged with moral fervor and rueful compassion. How will this dazzling writer astonish us next time?" - Kirkus
"[An] enjoyable if overwritten novel..., fans of Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven and Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule will appreciate the novel's authentically pungent shed-row atmosphere, as ultimately satisfying as a mint julep on Derby Day." - Publishers Weekly
This information about The Sport of Kings was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
C.E. Morgan is an American author born in 1976. She studied English and voice at Berea College and holds a master's in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School. The author of the novel All the Living, she is a recipient of the National Book Foundations 5 under 35 award and a 2010 Lannan Literary Fellowship.
In June 2010 she was named one of the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list of fiction writers worth watching. Ms. Morgan won a United States Artists Fellow award in 2012 and a Whiting Writers' Award in 2013.
She lives in Kentucky.
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