ISBN-13: 9780307946737 Summary Winner, 2010 National Book Award for Fiction A brilliant novel that captures the dusty, dark, and beautiful world of small-time horse racing, where trainers, jockeys, grooms and grifters vie for what little luck is offered at a run-down West Virginia track.

The book is divided into four sections, each concerned with one of four horse races at a down on the luck. Like the beautiful, used-up, tragic horses she comes to love, Maggie has just enough heart to wire everyone's flagging hopes back to the source of all luck. Lord of Misrule Jaimy Gordon, 2010 Knopf Doubleday 304 pp. Lord of Misrule is a 2010 novel by Jaimy Gordon. But no one bothers to factor in Tommy Hansel's go-fer girlfriend, Maggie Koderer. The problem is, at this rundown riverfront half-maile racetrack in the Northern Panhandle, everybody notices - veteran groom Medicine Ed, Kidstuff the blacksmith, old lady 'gyp' Deucey Gifford, stall superintendent Suitcase Smithers, eventually even the ruled-off 'racetrack financier' Two-Tie and the ominous leading trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. Lord of Misrule (National Book Award) Lord of Misrule (National Book Award): Jaimy Gordon: 9780929701837: : Books Skip to main content. Horseman Tommy Hansel has a scheme to rescue his failing stable: He'll ship four unknown but ready horses to Indian Mound Downs, run them in cheap claiming races at long odds, and then gut out fast before anyone notices. Lord of Misrule (National Book Award) Jaimy Gordon on. At the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings sits the ruthless and often violent world of cheap horse racing, where trainers and jockeys, grooms and hotwalkers, loan sharks and touts are all struggling to take an edge, or prove their luck, or just survive.Įqual parts Nathanael West, Damon Runyon and Eudora Welty, Lord of Misrule follows five characters - scarred and lonely dreamers in the American grain - through a year and four races at Indian Mound Downs, downriver from Wheeling, West Virginia. Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon 2,992 ratings, 3.35 average rating, 649 reviews Open Preview Lord of Misrule Quotes Showing 1-7 of 7 Her hands felt their way blindly along the ridges and canyons and defiles of the spine, the firm root-spread hillocks of the withers.