Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son

Fast reading, bought book because I love reading about horses, especially Secretariat, &horse racing, and enjoyed everything else the author wrote about. His childhood, his father, sportswriter Mike Sullivan, growing up in Kentucky & then also bringing in the history of the horse from prehistoric times, brilliant! Also good recount of Secretariat's Triple Crown performance. Found myself laughing out loud and also crying at times! Read it in one day. Good job, Mr Sullivan!

"Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son", the first book from writer John Jeremiah Sullivan, is an exploration of the horse as literary motif, a son's love poem for his dead father, and a masterful writer's first attempt to wrestle his talents into a full-length book. To understand Sullivan, and his second book of essays,  Pulphead: Essays , whether sports fan or not, this raw and vulnerable look into JJS's family life is a must."What a farce, and a gaucherie, even to try to tell the story of a life," argues John Jeremiah Sullivan, as he- with humility, talent, and perhaps a touch of irony- tries to do exactly this.In chapters, such as "Icon", a "section concerning the physical evolution of the horse and the history of its meaning in human culture--", Sullivan's initial objective for the book, which "grew out of a conversation with Guy Davenport about the long history of the talking horse as literary motif..." is clear. Although, it is in the chapters about his father, Mike Sullivan, that John Jeremiah's writing finds its highest emotional pitch- one that possesses the blue, melancholic beauty of a Kirchner street scene.After reading the chapter about Mike Sullivan's last days, I was literally distraught for hours. The language was so real, so honest that I almost felt like I knew Mike Sullivan, or that somehow I was reading about the last days of someone who I loved. But I suppose because of JJS's writing, his dad had become, over the course of this book, close to me.Mike Sullivan spent a career as a sportswriter and newspaper reporter in Louisville, Kentucky and after that Ohio. His chief passion was baseball. But it was the 1973 Kentucky Derby, when Secretariat triumphed in the first leg of his magical Triple Crown run, that Mike credited as the most special sports moment in his life.Mike Sullivan, the one that emerges on the pages of this book, is a loving, flawed, sometimes distant, chain-smoking, literary, and humorous man. Of his father, JJS writes, "my father's ambition had been to Write (poetry, no less)." Every year Mike Sullivan would wear a white suit to the Derby in homage to one of his literary heroes, Mark Twain.In his college days, Mike Sullivan was a Ginsberg aficionado and hippie, who filled his course of studies with reading the works of literary giants. He left college with grand literary ambitions- ones that his son has more closely achieved than he. Mike Sullivan's career never reached the heights that perhaps he dreamed for himself in his most personal moments.Mike settled instead for the income and security of a job as a sports reporter. JJS writes nostalgically of afternoons in the booth with his father, from where Mike covered minor league baseball games in Louisville. Mike had a reputation among his colleagues as humorous and gregarious man. Through sports, and the language around it, father and son found a way to communicate, to express their love.The "Notes" in this book's title is appropriate. The style is a collage. I have read many, many books about the history of horseracing. But somehow JJS's hodgepodge, quilted style, the way he patches together immense amounts of information, which he colors with his own opinions, achieves an effect that is unique. JJS philosophizes like Bill Barich at his greatest heights in  Laughing in the Hills , while not sacrificing the rigorous research one expects of a David McCullough book.This book is a young writer's book. A Faulkner's  Flags in the Dust (Vintage International) , and not the taut perfection of a later work like  The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text . There is beauty in this rawness, in a young writer's attempt to unleash his talents, in not letting convention stand in the way, in seeing if the pasta will stick to the wall.This beauty is achieved partly because of the presence, rather than the absence, of the writer's psyche on the page. JJS's psyche is an empathic one. He attempts something I have never encountered before in a horse book, and something that I believe says a lot about Sullivan as a writer- he tries to empathize with a yearling, to wonder what those first days of domestication is like in the mind of a young horse, "...the time the bit is slipped into its mouth and it first tastes the whip, it will have come to see reality as a succession of such indignities, but perhaps not so awful, with excellent food that appears magically every morning and night, and a little herd of bipeds..."Whether a yearling, or his father, Sullivan is able to do what only the great writers are able to: imagine what it is like to be in the mind of his subject. That empathy and ability to see the world through the eyes of his subjects, whether they are horse or human, is what sets the works of JJS apart.

I can't help but add my voice to the chorus of accolades. This book is a gem. Sullivan tells his tale in an original voice and finding this voice is a delightful discovery. At times this book made me laugh out loud, and at times I couldn't read the words because my eyes brimmed with tears. There are some passages that are flat-out hard to read, but to read them, in the end, is to be reminded of what it is to be human. Sullivan harnesses horses as a powerful metaphor. I will certainly read this book again.

The only parts I skipped were the ones that went way back in time. I wasn't interested in that. I was very interested in tales of the authors father, however. And about him witnessing Secretariat's Triple Crown.

J. J. Sullivan is about to become an important American writer and essayist. Read "Blood Horses" and indulge your interest in horse racing, where it started, who does it appeal to, its history, its thrilling modern times productions, and just about anything else. And all of it written with authority and panache. An outstanding work.

If Sullivan were any better a writer he'd be illegal. Every sentence in this book is a tiny gem, every tale told a revelation. I learned more about racing, Kentucky, and the strange bonds of family then I had any right to expect for the cover price. And whatever Sullivan writes in the future, I'll be happy to have it in my library.

Good read, not finished yet

Good paper quality, easy to read. in general like new condition. Boring book tho. Its a good book to read if you want to passout.

Sullivan's Pulphead is extremely compelling, on music. cave-paintings, American eccentrics, anything he has cared to write about, whether you were interested in his subject beforehand or not.Maybe this is even more interesting: such an intense personal record of American racing, although, heartlessly, I can always give or take the memoir aspect. Your parents, why I should I care?When he's in Kentucky and going to races the book is at its best, and all he has to say about the horse and its history is a great introduction to the subject, with moving literary touches about its sufferings as a warhorse, and its veneration as a hobbyhorse.Certainly young writers should emulate great ones, but I'm not sure Sebald has done so many young Americans many favours. We could lose the blotchy photos in all their books, they bring nothing, in Sebald they serve as poetic symbols. But Sullivan has really learnt from Sebald's discursive melancholy, and his writing has its own original beauty and clarity.

First of all, I'm a massive horse racing fan and therefore the theme of the book is interesting for me. Surprisingly though, the strongest part of the book is the authors personal story, the thoughts on his father, their relationship, and the sad ending of it. It is emotional and really made me feel it. There are interesting parts about the history of the horse as well as breeding and racing itself. When he talks about the evolving pedigree lines, about the Triple Crown, bringing in his own experience from the Derby.However, I can only give 3* after all because as captivating the book was in parts, so though it was to stick with it in other parts. There is a clear lack of focus and direction. This switching back and forth, memoirs, history, quotes... there is too much content cramped into this book unfortunately and there were a point where I was seriously considering to discontinue reading it. There were exciting parts, and there were plain boring, pointless parts. Sometimes less is more.

A bit discombobulated at times –– Sullivan seems eager to try to link two things that don't really link together –– but brilliant writing, as you would expect.

Prattles on a bit without really gripping you. Provides an interesting enough snapshot to a time and place but ultimately not a book I'd go back to or recommend.

Great odd marvelous memoir.