Readers Up #9: Southbound
Gambling! I don’t really get it.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, oh Diana, I have some bad news for you, but fear not. I, a veteran of several terrible fandoms, firmly believe that there are countless roads to the Divine. The thorniest path to Equine Jesus may be committed horseplaying, as drawn in Jason Beem’s hardcore racetracker debut Southbound. The title is doubly descriptive: Ryan McGuire, erstwhile Portland Downs race-caller and gambling addict, moseys through the West Coast’s Thoroughbred tracks in a path due south from Portland to San Diego. En route, he also plummets from a fragile state of recovery to full-tilt betting’s rock bottom. If there was ever a dose of media geared toward illuminating betting as a pastime for the don’t-get-it crowd, this is it.
As racing novels are sometimes assumed en masse to be Dick Francis rip-offs, racing itself is typically seen by non-participants as a gambling operation that happens to travel on four legs. My own reading and writing proclivities center horsemen and women more often than not, and so a story from the perspective of a race-caller and career bettor was a strange read at first. Why was Ryan even doing this? By his own admission (and this is something you hear on racing Twitter, in comment sections, and on every racetrack apron in the world, I’d assume), full and regular participation in the sport burns you out:
From the first time I got into racing, I always thought, “Why are these guys so bitter and jaded about everything?” However, after six years of working in the business, and ten years of gambling seriously on the horses, jaded would be something I’d consider an uplifting mood.
Damn, Ryan. Tell us how you really feel.
The tension between nominally loving a thing and being exhausted and infuriated by it may be the Human Condition™, and even a hobby or sport that looks as strange from the outside as horse racing takes on a familiar aspect when seen from within. Southbound is a wonderland tour, with the narrative and Ryan’s journey ranging from roughneck Portland Downs on a weekday to the glamorous and historic California tracks on the biggest race days of the year. The slice-of-life pace is set against the tension underlying Ryan’s existence, creating an atmosphere of dread that enmeshes the reader ever more tightly in Ryan’s spiraling mind. By the book’s end I might not have understood betting more intuitively than before, but I felt it in the jaw, the way that feeling is always first. Comprehension may arrive or not; emotion lingers. I’d read the book previously, in an initial wave of racetrack lit a few years ago, and I think it’s one that rewards the re-read. At that time, although I enjoyed the story, I also resented it for not being exactly what I wanted to read, which is never a useful way to interact with a book (but may be a useful way for books to get written). Now, at seemingly the perfect cusp of experience and innocence, I better appreciate the narrative for itself... and for the people for whom it was written. When I first encountered Ryan, I’d never gambled: not on horses, not on hockey, not on the National Spelling Bee or presidential elections, not at a mutuel window and not in a casino. Now, a show bet or two and a reckless Derby superfecta later, that crescendo of thrill edging into horror left a flavor in my mouth as I read, as though I’d bitten my tongue.
The instant escape, where no one else around matters, or is of consequence. It’s one of the few times I can exist in the space of others and revel in some kind of twisted peace. It’s just me and that television. And I’m fucking excited about it.
The adrenaline surge of a bet placed, the calm of anonymity along a crowded rail or among the simulcast horde: these are the underlying notes of racing's perfume, a scent almost as compelling as horseshit. Southbound delivers a human narrative wrapped in horseplayer culture, no mean feat for a sport perceived outside and in as overlooked and misunderstood. A common piece of wisdom lobbed at authors is to write what you know; the adage pays off in spades for a topic like Thoroughbreds--particularly when a writer is adept enough to provide background on bet types, graded stakes, and real-world locales without sacrificing character development or plot movement. Beem's novel hits the sweet spot both for readers familiar with the sport and newcomers intrigued by the larger narrative of addiction and redemption. Below, you'll find a glimpse into just how he managed it.
DH: Hi, Jason! Thanks for chatting about Southbound and your writing life. Southbound features a glut of big-name races and several horses whose careers protagonist Ryan follows. Can you talk a bit about creating plausible careers for fictional horses at real racetracks?
JB: So many of the horses in Southbound are based loosely on real life horses and some even have names of real life horses. Also many of the names are just little 'Easter eggs' to friends and inside jokes. One of the best parts of writing fiction was that I get to create everything just how I want it. There's obviously some limitations as you want things to be realistic, but really the world can be whatever the author wants it to be. Mondatta, who is kind of the main horse, is obviously very inspired by Zenyatta. Late starter who blossoms and eventually takes on the boys. But she also suffers some defeats and I think shows that even when you're the best horse sometimes you get beat.
Catching the attention of the publishing world can be difficult for writers creating Thoroughbred stories. Has your experience with a small press prompted you to keep going in the world of traditional publishing?
I will be the first to admit that I was very lucky in my search to find a home for Southbound. I had a friend who is an accomplished writer named Willy Vlautin (Lean on Pete, The Motel Life, and more) and he really helped me throughout the process. I honestly only queried Southbound to smaller publishers just ‘cause I assumed there was no way any big publishing house was going to take a shot with me or the book. I enjoyed having a publisher and editor to help with all the small stuff as I really had no clue how to do any of that. They took care of all the cover design, layout, getting the book onto shelves and Amazon, all of it. I would have been a mess trying to coordinate all of that. I have a great respect for people who self-publish and can take on all those areas of launching a book, but for me, I prefer to work with a publisher.
Ryan’s trek takes him from Oregon to California and Portland Meadows to Del Mar, with abundant detail given for each racetrack. Which track (in the US or elsewhere) is your favorite? Alternately, which have you been most impressed by?
Emerald Downs is my favorite because it's my home track. I live ten minutes from there and it has a special place in my heart for so many reasons. When my dad was sick in 2001 we went every weekend. After he passed away I just kept going and it helped me feel like some part of him was still here just being around it. He's actually buried on Scenic Hill which is just east of the track and from his headstone you can can see Emerald Downs in the valley below. Santa Anita is also still very special to go to. I remember going for the first time in 1998 and when we walked out to the apron and you see the mountains and the palm trees it takes your breath away. I remember my dad saying to me "now this is a racetrack" and he's so right.
How do you balance writing for racetrackers versus a wider audience who may not be familiar with the deep cuts of horse racing?
Southbound was really a journaling exercise that got out of hand. The first few drafts featured almost no explanation on the sport or betting. It was written just for me and I already knew all the details of the game and the betting. So it wasn't until I started working with the editor from Pandamoon Publishing that we started to realize that there was going to have to be some basic explanations of the game and the betting to go along with the story. Horse racing is just so complex and honestly intimidating I think to new people. So there are a few parts where I try and give quick explanations of the bets that the main character is making. But I tried to just keep them to a paragraph as I knew that a large number of the readers of the book would already know these things. So we really did find that it was necessary to give some explanation, but not beat people over the head with it.
Southbound is officially a five-year-old! The racing landscape has changed both a lot and not much at all since 2014. Did you intend this story to be timeless in its depiction of the sport? Are there aspects you might change if you wrote it today?
I've recently gone back and read Southbound again a couple times in recent months after not reading it since 2014. As far as the racing and betting parts of it, I think not much has changed. The tracks are all the same, all the wagers are still offered, and for the most part the technology hasn't changed that much. What I really noticed had changed in the book was me. It's strange now as a 38-year-old to read what I was writing as a 31/32-year-old. Obviously the world has changed a lot, but even as a people we change so much. There are many passages or lines where I read them and think "I would never write that now," or "I can't believe I thought that was funny." I wrote that during a period where I was greatly struggling with my mental health. I rarely left the house other than to get food or go to counseling appointments. It is a little strange to try and go back to that place in my mind because thankfully right now I'm not dealing with those struggles. There are some things in the book I would definitely change; not any major plot points, just some of the ways the character speaks in a few parts.
What was the first story you ever wrote?
Most of my earlier writing was actually music. I had a band all through school called Stabone (we were big Growing Pains fans) and I did most of the songwriting for that. I also recorded a lot of songs just acoustic under my own name (there's a bunch of videos on YouTube). Southbound really was my first foray into fiction and long-form storytelling, though. I was terrible about reading as a child in school. It really wasn't until I was out of college that I began reading just for enjoyment. From 2009 to 2012 all I read was authors from Portland where I was living. Willy Vlautin, Lidia Yuknavitch, Monica Drake, and Tom Spanbauer were all these amazing local writers who were just brilliant. Those years really got me interested in writing and Tom Spanbauer had a class called "Dangerous Writing" that he did from his basement and that's where Southbound started.
What’s next on your project list?
So my next project is actually Southbound again. A few months ago I was contacted by some producers about optioning the movie rights to the book. After a few months of discussions we recently came to a deal and I'm going to write the script. I'm still in the outline phase but it's been really fun going back in and being with Ryan McGuire again. The script will be a fair bit different from the book so it's actually fun to kind of get to rewrite the story again and have it go in some other directions. It's been very collaborative so far and I'm looking forward to seeing it grow into script form.
What’s a book in the racing canon that you’d recommend to any reader?
I'm very biased but I loved Lean on Pete the book and was thrilled to get to be involved in the film that came out last year. T.D. Thornton's Not By a Long Shot is a really great look at Suffolk Downs and a year at that track. Also I remember enjoying The Big Horse, about P.G. Johnson and Volponi.
If Jason's thoughts here and news of a fresh racing film pique your interest, you can find Southbound in print or for e-readers. Jason himself is on Twitter and in your eardrums for everything racing-related, including the sport’s most prestigious awards.
Yours with one eye on Hog Creek Hustle in the Louisiana Derby,
Diana