Year at the Races

Rating:
Summary: Good photography, anemic writing
Review: Robert B. Parker, Joan H. Parker, and William Strode, A Year at the Races (Morrow, 1990)

Spenser author Robert Parker and his wife Joan met horse trainer Cot Campbell through some friends, and Campbell invited them to see the sights. They took along Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer William Strode and someone from the publicity office. This book documents what they experienced.

From a racing standpoint, Parker couldn't have had this opportunity at a better time; the year Parker spent with them spanned the yearling and two-year-old season of the best horse Campbell ever trained, Summer Squall. Yet the statement with which Parker opens the book, "I know nothing about racing," rings loud and deep here, and reverberates throughout. At the end of the year, Parker still knows nothing about racing, and it shows. The most interesting thing about the text is how much Parker describing Joan sounds like Spenser describing Susan. But I should have expected that.

The value of this book lies in the fact that the Parkers brought William Strode along for the ride. Strode's photography here is dazzling, often amusing or thought-provoking, never boring. Strode does know something about racing, and about racing culture, and his many wonderful pictures here are testament to that.

So in other words, buy it for the pictures. ***