Excerpt from Contrapposto by Dave Eggers, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Do I need an ID?"

"Not to get in," she said. "You don't need a ticket or anything. It's free."

They entered the gates and found a trio of horses in a round pen dense with flowers and garlands. A jockey in pink and black sat atop the shimmer¬ing burgundy hide of an enormous horse wearing a white headdress.

"The colors!" Olympia said. "Can you believe it? Look at that one!"

A silky black horse was led into the pen, a jockey in polka dots standing in his stirrups. "This is so the bettors can inspect them before the races. See how that coat shimmers? What would be the evolutionary point of a shimmer like that? I'm thirsty. Are you thirsty?"

She led him through the turnstiles and into a dim corridor smelling of urine, bleach and cigarettes. She stopped when she saw a concession counter.

"You wait here," she said. "Actually, over there," she said, and pointed to a dim corner. "Do you have a ten?"

Cricket gave her a ten. He'd brought fifteen.

"I'll be back," she said.

He watched her disappear into the corridor under the grandstand, men stepping aside as she approached. One elderly man took off his baseball hat in a most formal way and closed his eyes as she passed.

She returned with two clear plastic cups full of yellow beer. He reached for one. "Not yet," she said. "Follow me." She led him through the cool concrete corridors until she turned quickly and they walked into the bright light of the fairgrounds, a sea of green grass, bursts of rosebushes, red and white and yellow, and carnations, and in the center of it all, a silver fountain spraying white water. He'd never seen anything more beautiful.

They sat down and she handed him one of the cups.

"You're fine now," she said. "Just don't walk around with it," and she drank half of hers in one take. She placed her cup between her legs and wiped her mouth with the base of her hand. "It's Pabst, so it's good."

They were sitting in the grandstand's sunny lower seats, and the sun multiplied the effect of the beer on Cricket; he was drunk in minutes.

"Wait till you see them run," she said. "Tell me if you think it looks like slow-motion. I can't figure it out."

The bell rang, the chutes opened, and a distant clacking began. Cricket had expected to witness violent speed, noise and chaos, but it was not that.

"See how they seem to go in slow motion from here?" she asked.

"I do," he said.

"Thank you! I was starting to think I was crazy. They're moving so fast, I realize that objectively, but from here it's so incredibly slow. Do you see it that way? I know your way of seeing is unusual. You must like Degas," she said. "The way you draw."

"I think so," he said, and took a long sip of the yellow beer. It was already warm and he didn't know the name she had just said. Every minute, she ut¬tered a name he didn't know, a place he'd never heard of.

"You think so! When you see horses don't you think of Degas? He could draw two things especially well—horses and ballerinas. And floors!" She laughed again. "But seriously, he and Manet used to argue about who painted horses first." She took a long sip, almost finishing her beer. "It was Manet, actually, but Degas would never admit it. Now you know who I'm talking about? Ballerinas onstage, floors and bassoons in the foreground? Degas?"

Now he knew. "I know it," he said, and he closed his eyes, feeling he was evaporating, becoming one with the sun and grass and flowers.

"How are you with hands?" she asked, and he pictured his hands around her waist, slow dancing like he'd done with Inés Herrera in middle school, feeling her chest expand against his. "I don't like my hands. Stuart says they're stubby. What do you think?" She presented them to him, placing one squarely on his knee. Then it was gone, hidden under the folds of her skirt. "Actually, don't answer that. But Degas made all hands look dainty. He was good at that."

Excerpted from Contrapposto by Dave Eggers. Copyright © 2026 by Dave Eggers. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.