Amazon.com (ISBN 0020811853, Paperback)

Reproduced as graphics that preface narrative sections, the postcards in this novel -- communications between the Blood family and their son Loyal, as well as other personal mail and advertising material -- progressively reveal the insecurity of the rural Bloods in the changing post-war world. Loyal has fled into exile after an accidental killing, but cannot find a haven of rest. The family patriarch, Mink, writes vitriolic letters to local agricultural agents when the real object of his ire is his absent son. Loyal's brother sends off for an artificial arm to replace the one he lost in an accident; his sister answers a mail order ad for a husband. Through the mail, Proulx inventively reveals the inchoate longings of a difficult existence in this winner of the 1993 PEN/Faulkner Award.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 068480087X, Paperback)

From the bestselling author of The Shipping News comes Postcards, the tale of the Blood family, New England farmers who must confront the twentieth century -- and their own extinction. As the family slowly disintegrates, its members struggle valiantly against the powerful forces of loneliness and necessity, seeking a sense of home and place forever lost.

Loyal Blood, eldest son, is forced to abandon the farm when he takes his lover's life, thus beginning a quintessentially American odyssey of solitude and adventure. Yearning for love, yet forced by circumstance to be always alone, Loyal comes to symbolize the alienation and frustration behind the American dream.