A lonely newlywed and her wayward brother-in-law follow dangerous paths through the American West.

Muriel is newly married and restless, transplanted from her Kansas hometown to life in a dusty bungalow in San Diego. The air is rich with the tang of salt and citrus, but the limits of her new life seem to be closing in: she misses her sly, itinerant brother-in-law, Julius, who made the world feel bigger than she had imagined. She begins slipping off to the Del Mar racetrack to bet and eavesdrop, learning the language of horses and risk. Meanwhile, Julius is testing his fate in Las Vegas, working at a local casino where tourists watch atomic tests from the roof, and falling in love with a young card cheat named Henry. As each gets increasingly lonely, lost, and wild, will they be able to find one another again?

On Swift Horses is a debut of astonishing power: a story of love and luck, of two people trying to find their place in a country that is coming apart even as it promises them everything.