A benefit for all Music Hall members, Book Club meets on the second Monday of the month in the lounge at Portwalk Place from 6-7:30pm. Evenings include time for socializing followed by a moderated discussion. This month’s title is Horse by Geraldine Brooks.
About the Book:
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
To see upcoming Book Club events, click here.
About Our Moderator:
Mary Beth Johnson is the Director of Institutional Advancement, who relocated to New Hampshire from Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2022 when she accepted this role at The Music Hall. Mary Beth is a graduate of Salem College where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Management & Music with a minor in Not-for-Profit Management. A lifelong learner, she has studied with Indiana University’s School of Philanthropic Studies and is working on her Masters degree in Organizational Leadership at Northeastern University while also learning to play the fiddle.