What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America’s Legendary Racehorse
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
Lovers of stories about hidden histories as well as horses, particularly racehorses, may be interested in this book. Civil War fans and those of Geraldine Brooks’s Horse (the historical fiction story of Lexington) may also find this book interesting.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
Although I wrote about a racehorse in nineteenth century America, I love books about space and the Mercury/Apollo missions. Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff and Andrew Smith’s Moondust: In Search of the Men who Fell to Earth are among my favorites.
As far as LEXINGTON, writing this book put me in contact with some colorful people like Jack Delk, a caretaker at the Greenlawn and Shady Rest Cemetery in Franklin, Kentucky, where Sue Mundy is buried. Delk claims that mysterious things have happened at the cemetery for which he has no explanation. As far as haunted folklore goes, while Sue Mundy’s body hung from the hangman’s rope, a large black bull appeared on Broadway in Louisville just a few yards from the gruesome scaffold. Enraged and mad, the bull tossed his pitchforked horns threateningly at the crowd as he pivoted on his haunches and pawed the ground to charge. After a ten-minute stand-off, the bull was shot down. Some eyewitnesses claimed the bull had been possessed by the departed spirit of Sue Mundy. Also odd, but not as eerie, when I visited the Shady Rest cemetery, someone had gifted Sue Mundy’s grave with a red solar-powered lantern. What could it mean? “Tommy” was written with a black Sharpie across the top.
Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to the most? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?
This is my first time participating in the Kentucky Book Festival and I’m beyond excited to be there. Thanks so much for including this book! I’m excited to share the story of LEXINGTON with readers and to meet fans of this extraordinary horse.
