LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Emily Bingham picked the lunch spot for our interview, and let’s just say the choice of restaurant was smart and shrewd on her part.
We slid into a booth at Wagner’s Pharmacy, a century-old place in Louisville’s South End that has transitioned over the years into a no-frills diner and gift shop. It is located across the street from Churchill Downs, feeding horsemen and racing fans soup and sandwiches and eggs and bacon. The place is a shrine to the sport, and to the Kentucky Derby specifically.
This was the perfect—and perfectly cheeky—location to discuss Bingham’s new book, My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song. It is an unflinching, brilliantly written study of the song that is synonymous with the Derby—the one that will bring as many as 150,000 horse racing fans to their feet at Churchill on Saturday, many with tears in their eyes, as they boozily sing along to Stephen Foster’s 1853 tune.
