Inside the back gate of Indian Mound Downs, a hot-walking machine creaked round and round.
-- Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon, which won the National Book Award for 2010. It's a back-of-the-house view of horse racing.
It was a little hard to get into because there are a lot of characters using racing slang, the main narrator is is an old guy named Medicine Ed who doesn't think or speak too clearly, and much of the narrative is thoughts and dialog, both of which jump around realistically. It is actually easier to understand if I read it more quickly and let the idea if a whole sentence get to my brain -- reading each word made me stumble.
But once I got into the pace of the book, I became fascinated with it. I'd love to curl up in a corner and read it straight through.
