Ed Hotaling
Wink: The Incredible Life and Epic Journey of Jimmy Winkfield (2005)
Author: Ed Hotaling
Genre: Nonfiction (Biography)
Plot Summary:
Jimmy Winkfield was the youngest of 17 children born to a free black couple in the tiny town of Chilesburg, Kentucky in 1880. His parents died when he was young, and he was raised by an elder sister in Lexington, where he became acquainted with the world of horse racing. He rode his first race at age 18 and went on to become one of the top jockeys in America, winning back to back Kentucky Derbys in 1901 and 1902, a feat that was not to be repeated for over seventy years. Within two years, Jim Crow laws and a foundering racing industry left him without a job, and rather than giving up, this uneducated, yet savvy black man found employment with a Russian Count and quickly became the top jockey in Czarist Russia, winning huge purses in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Germany and Russia. The Russian revolution forced him to flee Odessa in 1919, but he landed on his feet in Paris, riding for yet another Russian, and eventually marrying the daughter of a Russian Count, Lydie deMinkwitz (his third wife) and starting his own racing stable. The Nazis and World War II displaced him yet again and he returned to America where the only work he could find was wielding a jackhammer on the streets of Queens for the WPA. After the war he returned to Paris where he lived the rest of his life as a successful trainer.
Geographical Setting: Racetracks throughout the world
Time Period: 1880-1974
Appeal Characteristics:
The pacing is uneven pacing as it shifts between detail-packed descriptions of the racing world and racing statistics and then moves to breathless accounts of unfolding world events. The tone is admiring of its subject and has an uplifting, inspiring feel and may appeal to people looking for stories of little-known, successful African-Americans as well as people who like underdog stories or sports stories of athletes overcoming great odds. This book would appeal to horse and racing lovers. Setting plays a large part of the story, with detailed descriptions of the turn of the century race tracks, especially Lexington, but even more fascinating are the descriptions of the final days of Czarist Russia and the burgeoning Russian revolution, and the glamorous world of Parisian racing prior to and during WWII, which may appeal to history buffs.
Read-alikes: Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit); Jeremy Schaap (Cinderella Man); Dick Francis' mysteries, which all feature horses and horse racing; Jane Smiley (Horse Heaven)
Red Flags: occasional use of racial epithets that were typical of the time period
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