KICK THE LATCH by Kathryn Scanlan — review by Stella

Recently, I was in a reading pit, where the novels I picked up were good or even very good, but not holding my attention. What I needed was something fresh, compelling and altogether distracting. Distracting in that good way; in the ‘I’m not stopping this book until I’m finished’ kind of way. You’ll only get a hmm or a later from me until I close the back cover. I read Kick the Latch in one gulp. Kathryn Scanlan is a genius. From transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, Scanlan has lost nothing of the voice of this woman and her hard life at the track in this moving and fascinating account of the underbelly of racing culture, while simultaneously constructing a novel of tidbits, of scrabble and insight, that jumps alive from the page.  A book of twelve chapters; each chapter a series of succinct episodes which are sharply arranged and rich in texture and character. With titles like ‘Bicycle Jenny’, ‘It Wasn’t His Fault’, ‘I Wouldn’t Barely Break’, ‘Gallon of Blood’, ‘Grandstanding’, ‘A Thousand Pounds of Pressure’ and ‘I Tried To Be a Normal Person’ it’s hard not to be curious.  Every small bit-player has a role to play in revealing the person at the centre, Sonia. Those that help her, break her, and the ones she observes. There are horses, front and centre; and the jockeys that ride well and badly, the owners who cheat and the ones who are okay. There’s the family of track workers who work the circuit, looking out for each other. Sonia, herself, is forthright and compelling. The stories or memories build and bounce off each other. There are times of losing and winning; of destitution and just making a living. There are the horses Sonia trains and the respect that she garners. There is the hard Midwest childhood and the misogyny which spells danger for a young woman determined to kick out on her own. And then there is the fact that this is Scanlan’s novel. It’s a joy to read something that you can’t be sure about. Sonia is a family acquaintance. The interviews were transcribed. Fiction is unreliable, but completely compelling. It’s truthful in a way that often memoir is not. Fiction is a portal and here, as I was submerged into the foreign world of horse trainer, track and the midwest, I was wonderfully distracted in the best possible way.