Laughing in the Hills

When Bill Barich decided, "with the same hapless illogic that governed all my actions then," to spend the spring of 1978 at a second-rate racetrack in Northern California, he might have been looking for a big score—the book does track the progress of his small wagering bankroll—but what he found was people, a collection of characters drawn to the track not by the promises of riches or glamour (there is little of either to be found here) than for subtler and more mysterious reasons: perhaps a desire for an orderly life, organized around the nine daily races, or for a disorderly one, outside the strictures of nine-to-five respectability. Barich's wry and affectionate eye for his fellow denizens makes this read like—and please note the high praise this implies—the nonfiction book Charles Portis never wrote.