I only read one book in November, Horse by Geraldine Brooks. It left me with such a reading hangover that I’ve only just recovered from it this past Sunday. Nearly three weeks after I finished this book and I have only just been able to read again thanks to fantasy novels.

Horse tells the story of how enslaved Black horse trainers shaped the modern American horse racing industry. It is set in two timelines, one current, one in the 1850s to 1870s with a groom who spends his entire life with one horse, the best race horse in racing history. In our timeline, a young art historian notices a dirty old painting of a horse in his racist neighbors pile of free stuff on their curb (it’s important that they’re racist, it matters). Meanwhile, a biologist who studies skeletons is studying and re-articulating the skeleton of a horse, the art historian and the biologist meet in their investigation of who their horse is.

Geraldine weaves together past and present, current racial politics and past racial politics, history and biology in a beautiful, captivating, heart-wrenching way.

If you have ever read a book that you know will haunt you for the rest of your life, you know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach. This book is one of those. None of these characters deserved what happened to them, no one from the 1800s or the 2000s, none of the horses. It was gut-wrenching and so, so important.

Laura