MARCH 7 2020 LISTENER 53
by SAMUEL FINNEMOREF
resh-laid suburbia, hoofbeats on
turf, Las Vegas neon and mush-
room clouds in the desert – the
settled 1950s sit uneasily at the
edge of the space age in Californian
writer Shannon Pufahl’s debut novel, On
Swift Horses.
It’s 1957 and newlywed Muriel moves
to San Diego with
husband Lee on the
understanding that
her new brother-in-
law, Julius, will join
them. Julius fails to
show but lingers on as
a signal of something
Muriel can’t quite put
her finger on; dipping
her toes into the secre-
tive world of jockeys
and gamblers at Del
Mar raceway becomes
the first step towards
finding out.
That’s literally only
the half of it, and yet
On Swift Horses keeps
up its impressive pace
while maintaining
a meditative atmos-
phere and almost
devotional attention
to gesture and action.
Every moment is a
character moment, with something at
stake and critical signals being read or
missed – giving the novel a quiet but
persistent inner energy across settings
and character perspectives. It works asJulius, gambling and picking out cheats
for casino pit bosses, strikes love and
catastrophe in short order and journeys
from Nevada to Mexico, and it works
as Muriel follows a tighter but equally
revelatory journey in San Diego.
The novel is packed with symbols of
chance, but neither
character is a play-
thing of fate: Pufahl
paints a convincing
inner world for her
characters as they
size up possibilities
and summon the
courage required to
walk their respec-
tive paths. Much
of the world of On
Swift Horses is based
on concealment
and misdirection,
by choice or by
necessity. But there’s
humour – stylish and
understated – and
a genuine, thrilling
rush of optimism
about human con-
nection and the
leap from survival
to self-discovery. All
while Sputnik circles
subversively overhead, one in the eye
for conventional American values and a
subtle lodestar for new possibilities. l
ON SWIFT HORSES, by Shannon Pufahl
(HarperCollins, $32.99)Much of the world
of On Swift Horses isbased on concealment
and misdirection, bychoice or by necessity.
Horses for
courses
A debut novel set in
the world of jockeys
and gamblers has
impressive pace and
a meditative feel.
that Colin used to say: “‘We were brought
up not to throw in the towel but to bite
bullets and fold towels neatly.’ While it
was rather easier for him to say, I did agree
with the sentiment.”H
e saved one last spectacularly vicious
blow to be delivered after his death:
he left his vast estates and any of
the money he hadn’t spent on showing
off to an employee. His humiliated and
devastated wife writes: “Going against
everything my mother had always taught
me, I let emotion take over and I screamed
and screamed and screamed ...”
All those grand parties, all that money,
all that privilege. She lived what was sup-
posed to be the high life. She didn’t live
her life in the “shadow of the crown”, she
lived it in the shadow of her awful hus-
band. This is a terribly sad book. l
LADY IN WAITING: My Extraordinary Life in the
Shadow of the Crown,
by Anne Glenconner
(Hachette, $34.99)Lady Anne Glenconner is
speaking at Wellington’s
TSB Shed 6 on May
23 and Auckland’s
Bruce Mason Centre on
May 25.Blue blood: Lady Anne
Glenconner, maid of honour
to the Queen, third from left.
Inset, Lady Anne in a photo
printed in The Tatler and
Bystander in 1953. Below left,
Lady Anne in 2013.Impressive pace:
Shannon Pufahl.