Best-selling author Geraldine Brooks to speak at April 11 Love of Literacy Luncheon

In her latest novel, Geraldine Brooks explores complex themes of race and slavery, romance and friendship, across generations — and connected by one horse.

The novel "Horse," published in June 2022, is rooted in the very real history of an American racehorse and in Brooks' own love for and appreciation of equines.

More: Star sub: Met standout Angela Meade to sing 'Norma' for Palm Beach Opera

"I came to horses late in life, taking up riding and getting my own mare at the advanced age of 53," Brooks said in a recent email interview. "I became obsessed with these sensitive, wonderful animals."

Brooks will discuss her work and her career transition from journalist to novelist as the keynote speaker for the 33rd annual Love of Literacy Luncheon benefitting the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County, on April 11 at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.

The luncheon is close to being sold out.

The event raises money for and increases awareness of literacy needs and programs throughout Palm Beach County, said Kristin Calder, chief executive of the Literacy Coalition. Donations may be made online at literacypbc.org.

"We are ecstatic to bring Geraldine Brooks to our community for the Literacy Coalition's signature event," Calder said. "Our Literacy supporters are avid readers and appreciate the opportunity to hear an author of her caliber."

Brooks, an Australian native, began her career as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. A 1982 scholarship sent her to Columbia University in New York City to pursue her master's in journalism. She worked for about a decade covering major conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans for The Wall Street Journal. Brooks' reporting on the Gulf War with her husband, Tony Horwitz, earned her the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of that conflict in 1990.

Her time covering years of crises helped to teach her about human nature and how a period of crisis can change people, she said.

"Those years were rich in experiences, often very extreme and dramatic," she said. "I still draw on what I learned almost every day in writing my fiction."

Her first book, "Nine Parts of Desire," was published in 1994. The nonfiction work is an examination of Brooks' time with Muslim women while covering the Middle East. Her memoir, "Foreign Correspondence," published in 1997, earned her a Nita Kibble Literary Award.

Brooks' first novel, "Year of Wonders" — about a woman's attempts to save her neighbors, loved ones and herself amid the bubonic plague in 1666 — was published in 2001, marking a sea change for the writer's career from primarily nonfiction to fiction.

Her 2005 novel "March" would earn her the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making her the first Australian to win the award, for which she was eligible thanks to her U.S. citizenship.

The honor was huge, she said.

"Totally unexpected and just generally thrilling," Brooks said.

Her career as a novelist has been cemented as she earned a reputation for her thoroughly researched and gripping historical fiction novels.

"Horse" is no different. Brooks discovered the story of the real horse, named Lexington, while at a lunch for donors at Plimoth Patuxet Museums, a living history complex near Brooks' home in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. There, she met an official with the Smithsonian Institution.

"He was regaling the table with the story of how he had just delivered the skeleton of the most famous racehorse of the 19th century from a forgotten corner of the attic at the Natural History Museum on the Mall to pride of place as centerpiece on an exhibit on the history of the thoroughbred at the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, Kentucky," she said.

Lexington's dramatic life story spanned the Civil War, and Brooks said she found a door into the story via the work being done by the Smithsonian's scientists.

The author, who now has six best-selling novels under her belt, said she looks forward to speaking to groups such as the Literacy Coalition, and to be able to support literacy, libraries and independent bookstores.

"On a personal level, I love to get out of the isolation of my writing room and meet enthusiastic readers," she said.

Brooks travels frequently between her homes in Martha's Vineyard and Sydney, Australia, and said she usually has a couple of books to bring with her: a novel and a work of nonfiction related to her research.

"For a long plane flight, I like to be sure I have a book I have already started and I am really engaged by," she said. "It makes the hours fly by."

Brooks just finished reading the novel "Milkman" by Anna Burns, set during the Troubles of the 1970s in Northern Ireland. She also just completed "Morning Pages" by Kate Feiffer, which Brooks described as "a delicious new comic novel" about a writer trying to meet the demands of motherhood while caring for her own mom.

She just finished writing "Memorial Days," a short memoir about what she learned when her husband died suddenly of cardiac arrest while on a walk in 2019.

"Now I am cleaning out my messy closets and file drawers in preparation for beginning a new novel," Brooks said.

Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Author Brooks to speak to Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County