You don’t have to be a jockey or a gambler to enjoy Jane Smiley’s book Horse Heaven. She’s has a longtime fascination for horses but this intriguing novel was written after two years of closely watching horsey antics on the race horse circuit around the world.
Tiffany Morse who works at Wal-Mart is described by the author thinking about what she really wants in life. Jane Smiley takes up Tiffany’s reflections:
“After she had gotten into bed and turned out the light, she thought that all she had was the same prayer she had uttered before. She lay on her back and looked at the ceiling. She whispered, “Please make something happen here.” Tiffany sighed. This was a prayer that always worked. Unfortunately, it didn’t always work as she had hoped. For example, she had prayed for a job, and gotten hired at Wal-Mart. She had prayed for a boyfriend, and attracted the deathless interest of Lindsay Wicks, her dampest, palest co-worker. She had prayed for a couch, and her mother had decided to buy a new one, passing the seventeen-year-old brown thing on to Tiffany, who was required to be grateful. She continued, “This time, I mean it.”
Geoff Pound
Source: Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven, (London: Faber and Faber), 21.
