Kick the Latch

Kathryn Scanlan's Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman's life at the racetrack--the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner's circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the "particular language" of "grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody"--with economy and integrity.

Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, the novel investigates form and authenticity in a feat of synthesis reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff's Testimony. As Scanlan puts it, "I wanted to preserve--amplify, exaggerate--Sonia's idiosyncratic speech, her bluntness, her flair as a storyteller. I arrived at what you could call a composite portrait of a self." Whittled down with a fiercely singular artistry, Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the reader on a careening joyride around the inside track.

Author: Kathryn Scanlan
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 09/27/2022
Pages: 144
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.26lbs
Size: 7.23h x 4.72w x 0.46d
ISBN13: 9780811232005
ISBN10: 081123200X
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Westerns | General
- Fiction | Animals