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Kathryn Scanlan's
Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman's life at the racetrack-the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner's circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the "particular language" of "grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody"-with economy and integrity.
Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, the novel investigates form and authenticity in a feat of synthesis reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff's
Testimony. As Scanlan puts it, "I wanted to preserve-amplify, exaggerate-Sonia's idiosyncratic speech, her bluntness, her flair as a storyteller. I arrived at what you could call a composite portrait of a self." Whittled down with a fiercely singular artistry,
Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the reader on a careening joyride around the inside track.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Kathryn Scanlan received a 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for "exceptional accomplishment" in literature. Her story collection
The Dominant Animal was named a Best Book of 2020 by
The Guardian, Southwest Review, and
Publishers Weekly, and her first book,
Aug 9-Fog, was praised in a starred review by
Publishers Weekly as "an outstanding debut, profound and moving: Scanlan's portrait of an everywoman feels entirely new." She lives in Los Angeles.
