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Track Conditions | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Klein
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $11.95
Buy Used: $0.05
You Save: $11.90 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 2674867
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 178
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0345423836
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9780345423832
ASIN: 0345423836
Publication Date: April 28, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Ex-Library Book Buy from the best: 4,000,000 items shipped to delighted customers. We have 1,000,000 unique items ready to ship today!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Pursuing a lover who fled because of his alcoholism, the author wound up as a racetrack groom in Cincinnati. His lyrical, episodic narrative chronicles five years in horse racing (1979-84), with flashbacks to a ghastly childhood. Michael Klein (now sober) is a poet, and it shows in his unerring use of just the right words to describe, precisely yet colorfully, an out-of-control life that climaxed with being fired just before his Kentucky Derby-winning colt ran the Preakness. A moving memoir and a loving depiction of the byzantine track world.
Book Description
Following his alienated lover to an Ohio race track, Michael Klein began a five-year career as a professional groom in the world of horse racing, which eventually included caring for 1984 Kentucky Derby winner, Swale. Klein formed an intense, loving bond with the colt, but his life was shadowed by the undertow of his alcoholism, a complicated relationship with his lover, and his memories of an abusive childhood. Track Conditions is a heartfelt story of resilience that examines the track conditions that can create and destroy champions, and those that can ruin or save a man.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Memorable Memoirs May 25, 2007
Klein, Michael. "Track Conditions: A Memoir", University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
Memorable Memoirs
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Michael Klein is an award winning poet and should win awards for his wonderful memoir "Track Conditions". It is both shameless and fascinating. After he followed his lover to an Ohio race track, Michael Klein began a three year career as a groom in the world of horse racing. He managed to bond with the 1984 Kentucky Derby winner, Swale. However he was plague with alcoholism and deeply concerned about his relationship with his lover which was on the skids as well as memories of having been abused as a child. His memoir is a story written from the heart and it is a tale of resilience. Using the race track as a metaphor for life, he shares his joys and his pain.
This is some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read but that does not mean that Klein does not get down and gritty. He holds nothing back as he illuminates his life. His life is not a pretty story--it is filled with excesses--but even so it is beautifully rendered. Here is an honest recreation of a life that is compelling.
We read as Klein succumbs to alcohol and enters a depressive state over lost love, dependency and casual random sex. It is never easy to read coming-of-age stories that are filled with pain but this is a coming-of-age story not to be missed.
It is likewise a story about horses and with the equestrian background we read about a relationship between tow men that are in the midst of deterioration.
The world of horse racing is a homophobic place but Klein managed to survive it and move up along the circuit as a groom. He discovered an affinity for horses and loved them as they loved him. We get to look into the world of horses and learn things that the average person never knows. He refers to the secrets of the world of horses as "racetrack society. The world of horse racing is a gritty and unreal world but it is not just that world that Klein tells us of. He writes of how little was available to a young homosexual with very limited means.
Written in the past tense, the memoir puts a distance between reader and writer from his beginnings until 1984 with quite a shocking ending. Klein makes no evaluations or judgments--he leaves that to the reader.
It is Klein's openness that makes this book so good. He defies the usual conventions of narrative and he is a writer to be cherished. The book is unique and very special and in no way follows the styles of other coming out stories. It is harrowing tale of redemption written by a poet in prose. The chapters are short and amazing and we realize early that there is little chance of resolution to be found. It is not a tell-all memoir--rather it is a half-told life and has something for everyone. It is not a book just for gays but rather a small life story that looms large.
A Different Kind of Horse Story: A Million Big Stars April 24, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Oprah, for a million little reasons, you chose the wrong memoir for your book club.
In an age where honesty in memoir seems to be a rare commodity, TRACK CONDITIONS is probably one of the most honest, compelling, and underrated books in print.
A fascinating glimpse into author Michael Klein's downward spiral into alcoholism, lost love, dependency, and casual sex, this lyrical memoir is not an easy read-never easy to read about another person's coming-of-age psychic pain. But this memoir is a must-read.
A real-life thoroughbred horse story, from a former groom's point of view, this memoir focuses on the deteriorating relationship between two young men in the midst of their own personal crises.
In 1979, Klein, a confirmed New Yorker, desperately followed his lover Richard Coatney into the homophobic underworld of thoroughbred racing, beginning his career as a horse walker at River Downs in Cincinnati and working his way up to groomer at Belmont, Churchill Downs, and Pimlico.
Among all the empty booze bottles and one-night stands, Klein discovered an aesthetic affinity for horses, in particular one special--and well-known--thoroughbred, precipitating the author's final downfall and then leading toward his eventual salvation--and this memoir.
Klein leads the reader into a world rarely ventured into by the average horse track bettor: vivid descriptions of lame horses being cruelly euthanized and the casual doping of horses for monetary gain. At the beginning of chapter three, the author summarizes, from his perspective, the visible and invisible aspects of "racetrack society":
"There are people you see all the time: the barn help, the trainers, the exercise crew, the men and women who deliver hay and straw and feed. And there are those you see only rarely, if at all: the jockeys, the parimutuel clerks, the owners, the starting-gate crew. Two worlds: the training world and the racing world."
Ironically, from the reader's perspective, the visibility/invisibility paradigm is directly the opposite from the author's.
And Klein offers insights into worlds which are largely invisible to most of us: in addition to the gritty side of thoroughbred racing, he also reveals the limited options available to an impoverished young homosexual, also a poet and rebel, of the late seventies and early eighties.
First published in 1997, the memoir's main narrative covers the author's racetrack life, from its inauspicious beginning to its shocking 1984 denouement, with some interspersed flashbacks to his abusive and incestuous childhood and Manhattan life with Richard.
While revealing vivid and harsh details about his life, the author maintains a psychic distance from the reader through his dispassionate use of the past tense; moreover, he does not editorialize from the perspective of the forty-something memoirist.
He simply unfolds his story, leaving judgments, analyses, and evaluations up to his readers.
The distance works well; the author never whines or asks his audience to feel sorry for him. He simply presents "in-your-face" statements and facts, like them or hate them.
It doesn't matter what the reader thinks; in the end, Klein, with a metaphorical kick from his equine friend, triumphs.
There is beauty and poignancy in Klein's spare prose, yet glimmers of humor add some comic relief, for example, when he describes some of the other grooms and other track people and recounts some his late mother's family stories.
I recommend this book for both gays and straights--anyone who appreciates a well-written life-story, no matter how down and gritty.
I own the 1997 hardcover edition, and it is worth every one of the twenty-two dollars that I paid for it.
Beautiful, simply beautiful August 28, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Being a straight nursing student who lives in small town america,I wasn't sure I would relate to this book. But the writing and the openess of the author surpasses any differences between our lives. An amazing book.
pure blues and bliss October 8, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Michael defies narrative convention while achieving its goals in his long prose poem/memoir/story. His is a story of triumph: whether found covered in ash and velvet and 100 dollar bills or perhaps in the spotlight of literary praise. Either way this story helped save me. Michael is a writer I respect and emulate.donaldahearn@hotmail.com
The best gay memoir ever April 7, 2001
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is so unique and special -- not at all your typical gay coming out story. There are horses here and the tactile world of the racetrack and Klein's lyrical and spare prose adds just the right kind of music to a poignant and harrowing redemption tale.
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