The Sport of Kings by C. E. Morgan – What is Wrong and Right with the Novel

A family saga about race, family legacy, horse breeding, slavery and the lives that got intertwined in between these man-made boundaries. The Sport of Kings is shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction this year.

Review

The question of why I read this book still baffles me. 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 Sport of Kings is a family saga of the Forge family who are wealthy whites in Kentucky. Young Henry Forge, rebelling against his dominant father (John Forge), decides to transform his family’s plantation into a racing horse breeding farm. He expects his daughter Henrietta to become his partner and successor in the quest for the perfect racehorse and to uphold the family legacy. Through Henrietta, the Forge family story gets linked with Allmon Shaughnessy’s family history. Allmon is the offspring of a white farmer and a black mother who was abandoned to raise the child on her own in Cincinnati. He ends up in jail and finally arrives at the Forge farm looking for a job. 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. But with such a flawed family history, each character lives a life of misery, paying their debts.

The novel touches on strong and relevant themes of patriarchy, racism and history of slavery in the South. 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. They’re not unintelligent. In fact, I’ve always found little girls to be as intelligent as boys, perhaps even more so. But women live a life of the body. It chains them to material things – children and home – and prevents them from striving toward loftier pursuits.” He teaches Henry that “man is the measure of all things” and that “real knowledge begins with knowing your place in the world.”

Henry’s upbringing, Allmon’s childhood are important chapters in the book, written in a way that touch your heart. Morgan does some of her character sketches very well that they seem life-like. The writing is dense and she often shows off her mastery over the written word with uniquely constructed sentences.

However, there are quite a lot of points I wish to touch upon about why the novel did not work for me. First, the sheer size of it. Yes, sometimes when the novel is extremely well done, the size does not matter. But this novel could have been half its present size. For example, the blurb behind the book starts with the sentence, ‘Hellsmouth, an indomitable thoroughbred filly…’ but in the book Hellsmouth is named on Pg327. You get the idea.

Secondly, there are a lot of unnecessarily details about the family which do not contribute to the plot and could have been cut down to give a crisper and heart touching novel. Another highlight of the novel was the horses. While I was relieved that the novel does not focus a lot on racing, it does spend a considerable time listing out descriptions about horses including their physical features, muscles, breeding procedures and so on. The author paraphrases from biology and evolution journals quite often which could have been edited out to make the story more interesting.

Next, about the characters in the book – I did not care much about any of them. I was fascinated by the character sketches of John and Henry Forge in the first chapters that show their dark side as well as Allmon’s as a child. However, the characters that are introduced later on seemed one dimensional that left me feeling no strong connection to any of them. Henrietta falling in love with Allmon is a major turn in the story and even this did not seem justified in the novel. What drew her to him compared to her other several lovers was lost to me.

While I applaud that the author tried to touch on the topic of the treatment of blacks, the characters and their actions are too stereotypical. I was particularly touched by Allmon’s childhood and what he has to undergo for no fault of his. But as an adult, he seemed to contribute lesser to the whole novel. None of the women characters have a deserving history written, which bothered me because Morgan dwells a lot of time in the history of even minor male characters. Henrietta, the demanding daughter and probably the only major woman character does not have a fitting end or story; it almost feels as if she was inserted in a man’s world and removed forcefully. So yes, this novel is typically a novel about men with no place for women, except to have endings that evoke sympathy.

Lastly, SPOILER ahead. Stop reading and skip to the end if you have this book on your reading list. Henry Forge has sexual relations with his daughter which I found extremely disturbing and it really dampened my interest in reading further. What further bothered me was it almost felt as if the characters found it to be a normal thing to do; rather than a violation.

Final Verdict

Honestly speaking, I did not enjoy the novel. I would have liked it had it been half the length, less stereotypical and faster paced. The writing shows glimpses of talent but the dull portions really overpower the goodness of the writing that it almost seems like the Great American novel gone wrong. If you are a patient reader you might enjoy the sprawling history of the Forges. However, if you would rather look for an engaging or thought provoking read, better give this one a miss.

If you are reading through the Baileys shortlist this year, you can check my reviews on the other books:

1. Stay with me by Ayobami Adebayo – Deception, Marriage and Childlessness

2. The Power by Naomi Alderman – When Girls Rule the World

3. Do not Say We Have Nothing by Madeliene Thien – Ambitious, Musical and Historical

4. First Love by Gwendoline Riley – Minimal, Melancholic and Pensive

5. The Dark Circle by Linda Grant – An Emotionally Fulfilling Read

Title : The Sport of Kings
Author : C. E. Morgan
Publisher : Fourth estate
Published : 2017
Language : English
Pages : 545
Rating : 2.5/5