Decider
Putnam, 1993
Characters
- Lee Morris
- architect and builder, revitalizes ruins
- Roger Gardner
- manager of Stratton Park
- Oliver Wells
- clerk of the course
- Lord Stratton
- Amanda Morris
- married to Lee
- Christopher
- 14, Lee and Amanda's oldest
- Toby
- 12, the troubled one
- Edward
- 10, imaginative, invents make-believe games
- Alan
- 9, outgoing & ebullient
- Neil
- 7, brainy, soaks up vocabulary & impressions
- Jamie
- the baby
- Rebecca Stratton
- steeplechase jockey, Conrad's daughter
- Mrs. Marjorie Binsham
- Lord Stratton's sister
- Conrad Stratton
- the oldest twin
- Keith Stratton
- Conrad's twin, violent
- Ivan Stratton
- Conrad & Keith's brother, owns a garden center
- Darlington "Dart" Stratton
- Conrad's son
- Hannah
- Lee's half-sister
- Forsyth
- Ivan's son
- Jack
- Hannah's son
- Henry
- Lee's friend, large scale junk dealer
- Perdita Faulds
- Penelope
- Perdita's daughter
Favorite passages
Well, I wanted to share some sort of quote about making decisions, but I couldn't pass up this one, when Lee is thinking about horses:
Imagine the world without them, I thought: history itself would have been totally different. Land transport wouldn't have existed. Medieval battles wouldn't have been fought. No six hundred to ride into a valley of death. No Napoleon. The seafarers, Vikings and Greeks, might still rule the world. Horses, fleet, strong, tamable, had been just the right size. I watched the way their muscles moved under the groomed coats; no architect anywhere could have designed anything as functional, economical, supremely proportioned.
Chosen by members of the reading group in the late 1990s. From Decider by Dick Francis.
The group read it
We discussed Decider on May 18, 1998.
This page was first written for the reading group's original site in the late 1990s and was lost when AOL Hometown closed. It has been recovered from the Internet Archive.