Geraldine Brooks, _Horse_

 IN AN APPENDIX to Paisley Rekdal's Appropriate, she provides a ten-point self-assessment for writers thinking of representing the perspective of a character whose identity the writer does not share. It is more elaborate than but essentially similar to Alexander Chee's three questions from "How to Unlearn Everything":

1. Why do you want to write from this character's point of view? 

2. Do you read writers from this community currently? 

3. Why do you want to tell this story? 

I imagine Geraldine Brooks's agent, editors, and publishers went over some of this ground with her as she was working on Horse, which relies heavily on the narrative perspective of two Black men. One, Jarret, is an enslaved teenager who is entrusted with the care of the legendary (and historical) 19th century racehorse Lexington; the other is Theo, a doctoral student in art history in our own time, who is studying surviving paintings of 19th century American racehorses, with particular attention to the Black grooms and trainers often painted alongside them. Theo's study of one particular painting leads him to the Smithsonian, where he meets Jess, an Australian zoologist-archaeologist and finds Lexington's preserved skeleton.

The novel has a five-page afterword that answers a lot of questions about Brooks's research into 19th century American horse-racing (her late husband, Tony Horwitz, was a specialist in the period), but does not discuss whatever self-examination she may have done about writing from the point of view of 19th or 21st century Black men.

Given the contemporary climate, though, she must have done some thinking about it, though, wouldn't you think? Especially given the circumstance that Theo is particularly interested in white artists' representations of Black personhood. Is that Brooks trying to disarm criticism? Or some kind of ironic joke?

I have no answers to these questions. They did make it hard to relax and enjoy the book, though. Still, Brooks's representation of Jarret's bond with Lexington has to be counted a success.