This book is the earliest collection of stories by Annie Proulx, first published in 1988. Because of that, I expected to find a few flaws, but quite the contrary. Not only they were flawless but also I thought they were extraordinary.

The stories are set in rural communities possibly on the eastern part of the states all the way to Canada. They are brutally truthful with vivid characters who are eccentric, malicious, and down-in-the-dumps kind of rural people. Most of their human dramas involve passion and jealousy, greed, infidelity, revenge, and violence. In some stories, values of the rich outsiders who arrived at the land at a later time clash against the rough, tough, and poor hunters, farmers, and fishers.

The stories are:

On the Antler
Stone City
Bedrock
A Run of Bad Luck
Heart Songs
The Unclouded Day
In the Pit
The Wer-Trout
Electric Arrows
A Country Killing
Negatives

learning from.

the twists and surprise endings and the language.

read Proulx's Wyoming Stories published later.

Was born in Connecticut in 1935 and educated in the University of Vermont. She worked as a journalist before her novels were published. Her work has won numerous distinguished prizes. Her second novel Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a movie. Her other books are: Postcards, Accordion Crimes, That Old Ace in the Hole, Brokeback Mountain, Close Range:Wyoming Stories, Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2, and Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3.

Her prose is sharp, detailed, with highly figurative language that at times sounds like poetry. In addition, her story construction and especially the twists at the ends of her tales can be models for less experienced writers.

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Created Jan 04, 2011 at 8:11pm • Submit your own review...