Introduction

Hellsmouth, an indomitable Thoroughbred with the blood of Triple Crown winners in her veins, runs for the glory of the Forge family, one of Kentucky’s oldest and most powerful dynasties. Henry Forge has partnered with his daughter, Henrietta, in an endeavor of raw obsession: to breed the next superhorse, the next Secretariat. But when Allmon Shaughnessy, an ambitious young black man, comes to work on their farm, the violence of the Forges’ history and the exigencies of appetite are brought starkly into view. Entangled in fear, prejudice, and lust, the three tether their personal dreams of glory to the speed and grace of Hellsmouth.

A spiraling tale of wealth and poverty, racism and rage, The Sport of Kings is an unflinching portrait of lives cast in shadow by the enduring legacy of slavery. C. E. Morgan, who received a 2016 Windham–Campbell Prize for Fiction, has given life to a tale as mythic and fraught as the South itself?a moral epic for our time.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of May 2016: The Sport of Kings is American and epic, a novel of lineage and legacy, race horses and racism, power and poverty. It’s graceful, provocative and at the right stretches, heart-pounding. Weaving together different centuries and narratives, C.E. Morgan exposes the soft and hardened edges of humanity with crushing clarity. The Forge family is Kentucky royalty: their land and wealth has been handed down for generations and Henrietta, the daughter of Henry Forge, stands to inherit it all. With his daughter by his side, Henry sets out to breed and race the fastest horse in history. In a neighboring town, Allmon Shaughnessy, an African American boy, comes of age in a world seeped in discrimination and violence. Years later, Allmon arrives at the Forge farm determined to remake his own story. It’s there that his fate will become forever entwined with the Forge’s, as Henry, Henrietta and Allmon, each stake their future in Hellsmouth, a filly bred from champions that could win it all. Fueled by beauty and rage, lust and violence, The Sport of Kings concludes with an ending that is as adrenaline fueled as Hellsmouth’s last turn at the Kentucky Derby. C.E. Morgan’s novel is a magnificent achievement, one that grapples with the weight of the past and the near universal desire to make your own destiny. --Al Woodworth

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