Lord_Of_Misrule_Jaimy_Gordon
2012 Longlist

Lord of Misrule

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

At the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings sits the ruthless and often violent world of cheap horse racing, where trainers and jockeys, grooms and hotwalkers, loan sharks and touts are all struggling to take an edge, or prove their luck, or just survive. Equal parts Nathanael West, Damon Runyon and Eudora Welty, Lord of Misrule follows five characters — scarred and lonely dreamers in the American grain — through a year and four races at Indian Mound Downs, downriver from Wheeling, West Virginia. Horseman Tommy Hansel has a scheme to rescue his failing stable: He’ll ship four unknown but ready horses to Indian Mound Downs, run them in cheap claiming races at long odds, and then gut out fast before anyone notices. The problem is, at this rundown riverfront half-mile racetrack in the Northern Panhandle, everybody notices — veteran groom Medicine Ed, Kidstuff the blacksmith, old lady “gyp” Deucey Gifford, stall superintendent Suitcase Smithers, eventually even the ruled-off “racetrack financier” Two-Tie and the ominous leading trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. But no one bothers to factor in Tommy Hansel’s go-fer girlfriend, Maggie Koderer. Like the beautiful, used-up, tragic horses she comes to love, Maggie has just enough heart to wire everyone’s flagging hopes back to the source of all luck.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Jaimy
Gordon

Jaimy Gordon’s fourth novel, Lord of Misrule, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2010, and was a Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; it also won the Tony Ryan Award for the year’s best book about horse racing, and many other awards and commendations. Gordon’s previous novels include Bogeywoman, She Drove Without Stopping, and Shamp of the City-Solo. She has been a Fellow of the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, and has also won an Academy-Institute Award for her fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has translated several works of Maria Beig from the German, most recently Hermine, An Animal Life. Born in Baltimore, Gordon formerly taught at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and currently teaches in the Prague Summer Program for Writers. (from Publisher)

Jaimy Gordon’s fourth novel, Lord of Misrule, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2010, and was a Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; it also won the Tony Ryan Award for the year’s best book about horse racing, and many other awards and commendations. Gordon’s previous novels include Bogeywoman, She Drove Without Stopping, and Shamp of the City-Solo. She has been a Fellow of the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, and has also won an Academy-Institute Award for her fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has translated several works of Maria Beig from the German, most recently Hermine, An Animal Life. Born in Baltimore, Gordon formerly taught at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and currently teaches in the Prague Summer Program for Writers. (from Publisher)

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
United States
Original Language
English
Author
Publisher
McPherson & Company

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