good reads | C.E. Morgan, The Sport of Kings; Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (2016)
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his book is not about theology or homiletics, or anything else academically religious. Neither is it what I would call “a beach book”—a light confection like the ones I read in the summertime when my toes are dug into the sand of Edisto Island. Truly, this book is somewhere in between. It is entertaining, sometimes provocative, and deeply thoughtful. Its prose is often so deliciously wrought that I want to weep. Spoiler alert: it is ridiculously long at 545 pages, and it desperately needs an editor. Nonetheless, there are whole sections that are gorgeously written, and my internal wordsmith remained engaged enough by such sections to finish the book. Moreover, in this fraught time of raw racial inequities and perhaps the possibility of our culture’s climbing together toward new and redemptive ground, the storyline is both compelling and instructive. It centers on several generations of both a Kentucky dynastic family eventually transitioning their large and noble farm from traditional agriculture to horse-racing, and the descendants of their slaves. In the current generation, a prized Thoroughbred named Hellsmouth—sired by Secretariat and a contender for the Triple Crown—brings together Henrietta, heiress to the horse family’s fortune, and Allmon, the horse’s chief handler and, eventually, the father of their child who is destined to inherit the horse farm. C.E. Morgan is a relatively new writer in her early forties who grew up in Kentucky. She went to Berea College, famous for offering a tuition-free education for poor and working-class Appalachians in exchange for students’ labor while they are enrolled. After graduating from Berea, Morgan also earned a degree from Harvard Divinity School. Still —Reviewed by Ted Wardlaw, president of Austin Seminary
breaking out, she has already earned a number of book awards and, with this book, was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. One hears in The Sport of Kings much evidence of both Morgan’s lived experience in Kentucky and her years in divinity school pondering matters philosophical and theological. Honestly, in my judgment, the book is a reflection on Original Sin across the centuries separating the farm’s being carved out of virgin forest from the times we are living in now. Its most obvious religious commentary is spoken from the mouth of Allmon’s grandfather—known as “The Reverend”—an African-American preacher who runs a halfway house in Cincinnati, and the most important male figure in Allmon’s life. Consider what The Reverend says in answer to a profound question from Allmon—still a child and years away from the circumstances that lead him to the Kentucky horse farm—having to do with where Jesus is in the absence of justice. “Jesus ain’t gonna force your hand,” the Reverend replies. “He just lives in you like a hope and shows you what he looks like every day, and you get to decide if you’re gonna make your life look like justice, even though you can’t see him nowhere, or if you’re gonna make your life look like fame or fancy things or money and whatnot. Now most people, they choose fancy things and money, because you can see all them, you can hold all them in your hand. But all them things you can’t see is what matters most. They live in the mind and the heart. The perfect things, like justice.” Then, without warning, the Reverend was praying, “Dear God, look at this child growing. Being a man is a heavy, heavy burden. Help his heart, Lord Jesus. Help him not be afraid. Help his heart to justice, even if the road gets rough and he’s got to drag a cross to Calvary. Bless all the little children, even the ones that don’t know you yet, Jesus. Amen.” It is the fervent hope for just this sort of justice that threads through the book, from start to finish. I recommend it. v
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