Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

The novel Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand is, simply, a masterful retelling of the life of a run-of-the-mill horse and his dramatic climb to stardom. More complexly, this book is the story of all of the lives that Seabiscuit touched. It is the story of the fading west and emergence of industry in America. It is the story of the depression era and the hope that a small, crooked legged horse inspired in people during a most dismal time across a stricken country.

The characters that Hillenbrand created with her writing (yes it is true that they already existed but not in the minds of most readers) are the definition of well developed. The reader knows every single detail about Charles Howard, Tom Smith, Red Pollard, and George Wolfe, from their eating habits to their physical tendencies. No detail is left out, no physical characteristic overlooked, no significant event in their lives neglected. The author takes painstaking care to never tell the reader why a character chooses to act a certain way but rather allows the reader to deduce that information from what we already know. A perfect example of this occurs in the beginning of the novel. Hillenbrand introduces George Howard and describes his life from a young man struggling to survive to his sudden rise to the top of the car industry. Having never met him, the reader is drawn into his charismatic attitude by words on a page. We are able to understand the motivations and hesitations behind his actions. When his son is killed in a car accident, we are not shocked by his regression into horse racing because we already knew about his early life cowboy desires. Every decision Howard makes from then on makes complete sense to the reader because we understand him on a personal level. Hillenbrand creates this same understand with each and every one of the main characters in Seabiscuit.

I loved the story of Seabiscuit the horse but there is a story behind a story within this novel. America had a changing landscape in the thirties and there were multiple elements that brought the men behind the horse together. First, there was the fading of the American west. The dream of being a rancher and a cowboy was becoming less and less financially possible. Tom Smith would probably never have left the plainsman life if he had not needed to in order to make a living. Smith was characterized a rancher in every way possible minus the ranch. It was the way he was brought up and the way he died. He had an understanding for horses that no book could provide and no school could teach. Howard loved the notion of the cowboy lifestyle but was unable to give up his success to fulfill his dream. Smith’s unparalleled ability to master horses could have been a secret desire of Howard’s. The two were a perfect match.

Then there were the jockeys. As much as Howard was the epitome of a “rags-to-riches” story, so was George Wolfe. Wolfe was one of the best jockeys in the country and one of the only out of thousands in that profession that was making enough money doing so to survive. But his wealth was attractive to many and loads of people pursued the sport to try to follow in his footsteps. Red Pollard was one of those many. Eventually the two became friends and their paths were inextricably linked.

The quartet of Howard, Smith, Pollard and Wolfe were mix of people that were destined to shine in the depression era. The public was facing a sense of growing hopelessness because of the severe poverty that had struck the country but they still held on tightly to the American dream of striking it rich. Together, those four men showed them that it was still possible to accomplish, not only for them but for a pathetic looking horse that no one believed it besides Tom Smith… at first.

One of the most incredible aspects of Seabiscuit is the amount of research Hillenbrand put into writing it. As a reader, I feel as if I appreciate the decade of Seabiscuit and the depression era in a whole new way but that knowledge came from a full understanding of the characters in the novel. Not once did Hillenbrand talk about the stock market or the amount of people starving in America, but the readers felt the need for a hero. And that hero was Seabiscuit.