I was hoping to like this book but it just didn't hit the mark for me. The setting is a down and out race track in Virginia in the 1970's with "claim" races. Each character has their own ethnic dialect and the each chapter is told from the POV of one of characters. I found it light on character development and plot and heavy on repetition. Some of the characters were interesting but I did not learn enough about any of them to be able to identify with them or appreciate them. Much of the novel is written in stream of consciousness narrative and there are no quotation marks - this did not bother me but others may find it difficult to read. The author seemed to be influenced by Faulkner. Lord of Misrule is the name of the horse in the last section and the one we learn the least about.
I liked this quote from the NY Times review of Lord of Misrule: "And Ms. Gordon is a showy enough linguist to make gloriously apt use of the words hierodule, unmiscible and catawamptious. Bet on this: youll never see those three words in the same book again."
I liked this quote from the NY Times review of Lord of Misrule: "And Ms. Gordon is a showy enough linguist to make gloriously apt use of the words hierodule, unmiscible and catawamptious. Bet on this: youll never see those three words in the same book again."
Dark, gritty novel about the ugly side of horse racing, far from the sparkling barns and big purses of the Triple Crown. Nobody wins in this story of grifters and gangsters, and the reader is hard put to keep all the players straight.
