Annie Proulx's writing deeply explores themes of survival and resilience within harsh environments. Her distinctive style is characterized by its immersive atmosphere, emphasizing the profound connection between people and the natural landscape. Through her narratives, she delves into the complexities of human relationships and the inner fortitude of characters facing adversity. Her prose often captures the wild beauty and unforgiving nature of the world around us.
'A subject that could not be more important. A compact classic!' Bill McKibben 'A moving elegy and cri de coeur for our world's wetlands. I learned something new - and found something amazing - on every page' Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'One of the greatest American writers' Independent From Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News and "Brokeback Mountain," comes a masterwork: an epic, dramatic novel about the destruction of the world's forests. In the late seventeenth century, two penniless Frenchmen, Ren� Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France, bound to a seigneur for three years in exchange for land, becoming wood-cutters—barkskins. Ren� endures immense hardship, oppressed by the forest he must clear, and is forced to marry a Mi'kmaw woman, leading to descendants caught between two cultures. In contrast, Duquet, crafty and ruthless, escapes the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, and establishes a timber business. Proulx weaves the stories of Sel and Duquet's descendants over three centuries, detailing their journeys across North America, Europe, China, and New Zealand amid brutal conditions, rivalries, accidents, and cultural annihilation. They exploit what seems an infinite resource, leaving modern characters confronting potential ecological collapse. Proulx's genius lies in her vivid characters—greedy, lustful, vengeful, or compassionate—drawing readers in with fierce attention. This novel is a magnificent blend of history and imagination, showcasing Proulx as one of America's most formidable writers.
Annie Proulx, one of America's finest writers, invites us to share her experience in the building of her new home on a rich plot of untouched, unspoilt prairie and her pleasure in uncovering of the layers of American history locked beneath the topsoil.
The fantastic new collection of stories from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News' and Brokeback Mountain'.
Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, Brokeback Mountain is her masterpiece. Brokeback Mountain was originally published in The New Yorker. It won the National Magazine Award. It also won an O. Henry Prize. Included in this volume is Annie Proulx's haunting story about the difficult, dangerous love affair between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy. Also included is the celebrated screenplay for the major motion picture "Brokeback Mountain," written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. All three writers have contributed essays on the process of adapting this critically acclaimed story for film.
The friendship between Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two cowboys, evolves into an intimate relationship while they are working together as a herder and camp tender, sharing a bond that spans many years and frequent separations.
"The stories in Annie Proulx's new collection are peopled by characters who struggle with circumstances beyond their control in a kind of rural noir half-light. Trouble comes at them from unexpected angles, and they will themselves through it, hardheaded and resourceful. Bound by the land and by custom, they inhabit worlds that are often isolated, dangerous, and in Proulx's prose, vivid." In "What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?" rancher Gilbert Wolfscale, alienated from his sons, bewildered by his criminal ex-wife, gets shoved down his throat the fact that the old-style ranch life has gone. Several stories concern the eccentric denizens of Elk Tooth, a tiny hamlet where life revolves around three bars. Elk Toothers enter beard-growing contests, scrape together a living hauling hay, catch poachers in unorthodox ways. "Man Crawling Out of Trees" is about urban newcomers from the east and their discovery, too late, that one of them has violated the deepest ethics of the place. Above all, these stories are about the lives of rapidly disappearing rural Americans.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Annie Proulx brings the immigrant experience to life in this stunning novel that traces the ownership of a simple green accordion.E. Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes is a masterpiece of storytelling that spans a century and a continent. Proulx brings the immigrant experience in America to life through the eyes of the descendants of Mexicans, Poles, Africans, Irish-Scots, Franco-Canadians and many others, all linked by their successive ownership of a simple green accordion. The music they make is their last link with the past—voice for their fantasies, sorrows and exuberance. Proulx’s prodigious knowledge, unforgettable characters and radiant language make Accordion Crimes a stunning novel, exhilarating in its scope and originality.
Folks in the Texas panhandle do not like hog farms. But Bob Dollar is determined to see his new job as hog site scout for Global Pork Rind through to the end. However he is forced to face the idiosyncratic inhabitants of Woolybucket and to question his own notions of loyalty and home.A brilliant novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain. That Old Ace in the Hole is a richly textured story of one man's struggle to make good in the inhospitable ranch country of the Texas panhandle, told with razor-sharp wit and a masterly sense of place.
Collection of short stories about loneliness, quick violence, and the wrong kinds of love
