Kick the Latch

Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan is a spare, distinctive novel built from transcribed interviews with a real horse trainer named Sonia, whose voice and idiosyncratic way of speaking shape the entire book.

Told in a series of short, vivid vignettes, it follows Sonia's life at the racetrack, from the flat land and ramshackle backstretch to the winner's circle and the racetrack bar, capturing decades of hard labour, setbacks, and devotion to the animals in her care.

Scanlan's economical, precise prose creates what she has called a composite portrait of a self, offering an unsentimental but deeply human look at a marginalized working world of grit, endurance, and quiet resilience that few readers ever get to see up close.