On Swift Horses, then, is a story about secrets and lies, about the image we present to the world and the reality beneath. While the men talk unaware, Muriel hugs their tips tight, then uses them to win on the racetrack, building up a fund that she lies about to her stolid husband Lee, claiming instead that she has sold the house in Kansas to help them set up on their own. These men pass the time gossiping about which horse is a sure thing and which will fail, speaking openly because “they believe the lounge owner to be simple – which is true – and Muriel, their waitress these long mornings, to be a woman and therefore incapable of both memory and complex reasoning… They could not know from her wide shoulders and square waist and rural modesty that she had taken the bus from Kansas on her own, that she could play cards and drive a car, or that she’d left behind a house she owned outright to come here.” On Swift Horses by Shannon Pufahl (Photo: 4th Estate)
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