Summary

Many years have passed: Henry’s first race horse, named Hellbent, loses its first races, but Henry meets his wife, Judith, while at the race track one day in 1972. Henry and Judith eventually have a daughter together, named Henrietta. The second chapter of the novel, “The Spirit of Lesser Animals,” is effectively a montage of different scenes from Henrietta’s life as she grows from a child and into a young adult.

When Henrietta is a young child, Henry tells her a bedtime story about the arduous journey taken by Samuel Forge, their ancestor who had moved the Forge family from Virginia to Kentucky many generations ago.

Judith takes young Henrietta to play by herself in the local graveyard, which is one of the few places to go in Paris. Judith smokes despondently in the car while...