While I enjoyed reading this book I found the author's writing distracting at the time. Over the years on thinking about it, it has grown on me and I still mull over the complex characters and the incidents within the book. A book that you still recall and think about many years later surely deserves recommendation. ( )

I don't even know why I am writing this....ambivalent: After reading this novel, I still have no idea how I feel about it. I know that I wanted to like it, having adored "The Shipping News" and liking "That Old Ace in the Hole" rather well. But the only thing I feel about this book is ambivalence. Not good, not bad...just nothing. The plot itself is anything but riveting. It follows random characters through their different American journeys, all ending in tragedy, death, debt, or just plain boredom. I see what Proulx is trying to say here about the American experience, but it seems to me it's been done better by others, Richard Russo being the first to come to mind. One annoying habit (actually two annoying habits) Proulx has is one: not identifying the speaker. After two pages of "he" and "she" the reader may finally realize who the story is about. Other times, the chapter may end without any name, and utter confusion. Two: Every ten chapters or thereabouts Proulx has a "What I See" chapter, which is exactly what it sounds like. Things the characters see. This is a chance for Proulx to show off her marvelous description skills, but it can also be tedious. Especially when most of the rest of the book is description. If you are looking to get to know Annie Proulx, this is not the book to start off on. Read "The Shipping News" or "That Old Ace in the Hole" first; both leave definite impressions and have better developed stories and characters. This book is...well, it's just THERE.

I love the characters Proulx creates, and moreso love her talent for capturing the energy of a time and place. She a gem. ( )

Postcards is a story on many levels. On the surface it's the story of a Vermont farmer's son, Loyal Blood, whose girlfriend dies in the act of being raped by him. To avoid having to explain any of this, he runs away, telling his family that the girl, Billy is going with him, and spends the next 40 years as an itinerant worker, sending home postcards from time to time. On another level, it's the story of "progress" and the social changes that took place between 1944 and 1984 in the American way of life, electricity, transport, conservation etc. I found it also the story of that part of each person who has something in their soul that they don't want anyone else to find out about. The story of the mistake, the wrong choice, and the effort taken to cover that up, often all throughout our lives, when all things would be easier (so it seems from an outside point of view) to be honest and seek forgiveness right from the start. ( )

Another captivating story, or set of stories, with very original characters and real insight into how life changes them and makes them what they are, yet still leaves elements of mystery. But as depressing in many ways as Accordion Crimes - it seems Proulx thinks the worst of humanity in general, as her characters seem to have the very opposite of redeeming features. There's something I find frustrating about her style, in which details of crucial, but sordid incidents are simply omitted and (to my mind) too much is left to the imagination. In this book, I never understand what happens between the central character and his lover that leaves her dead - was it an accident or murder and how and why? ( )

I think what struck me about Postcards was how powerful the language was. While the plot was hard and gritty, the way it was told was strong and confident. Almost like someone yelling emphatically, if that makes sense. It's the story of a farming family in New England. They are torn apart by the departure of the eldest son, Loyal. He has just killed his girlfriend and left her body under a pile of rocks in a nearby field. While the death was an accident, Loyal's leaving and the slow disintegration of the farm was not. Tragedy follows the family wherever they go. The beauty of the saga is how each chapter is punctuated with a postcard. It's these postcards that illustrate the changing times both for the nation and the family. Loyal often writes home, careful not to tell anyone where he really is. He continues to stay disconnected and this is apparent in what he shares with his family. ( )

Although all the other books I've recorded so far are just the ones I've read since I started recording them on LibraryThing, I wanted to add 'Postcards' because it seems to me to be one of the very best books I've read. I prefer it to Proulx's more commercially successful 'The Shipping News'. In 'Postcards' her characterisation has a wide-ranging depth, Loyal Blood's trek through life striking a chord as he struggles with what he has accidentlly done. The repetitions in the book gradually develop the themes, something I like as it allows the reader to make their own way through the novel and pick up what's there - and I also like how challenging it is in different subtle ways (like the draining of the swamp to create the future Disneyland that never gets named) with the Indian's book whose significance I mainly understood. Then there's the way the postcards at the start of each chapter throw an important light on other parts of the book - such as the car in a tree which lets the reader know that Loyal was wrong about being robbed - but there's no direct connection explicitly made. ( )

This is really quite a fine work. I am wholly impressed by the world Proulx reveals. Existential without the weepy woe-is-me flavour that pervades the genre. A classic at the outset, this novel spans five decades of failed pursuit of the American Dream. A considerable achievement for any author, this is a brilliant work as a debut. Nicely done in every regard. ( )

I have never read anything else by E. Annie Proulx; two
of her other books were recommended to me by the friend who passed on Postcards.

Postcards follows the Blood Family from their life as hardscrabble farm family to scattered individuals struggling to find out who or what they are. The book opens with Loyal, supportive son and apparent heir to the farm, raping and murdering his girlfriend. He hides her body and runs from home, family, and farm. Without Loyal's help Mink and his disabled son Dub cannot keep up with the work of the farm. Jewell and her daughter Mernelle have as much work as they can handle without taking on "barn chores". While Loyal wanders the country, working hard all the while, the family separates and the farm declines. Mink and Dub are caught in an insurance scam; Mink loses all but Dub goes from Vermont to Florida and discovers a whole new way of life. Jewell and Mernelle make better choices (though whether Mernelle is moving her dependency from her father to another man is debatable and debatedly better).

Loyal moves across the country sending postcards back to his family. He goes from despair and self-loathing to apathy and then to a sort of acceptance of himself where he can see the good. He helps people, he survives, and he makes friends.

In the end, the family members have come to be characters in themselves, individually important and complex in a way that they never could be as part of the Blood Family. Well, except for Mink, the family as a whole was who he was and he couldn't survive the breakup. Isn't that sadder than struggling and surviving?

Second favorite Proulx book after Shipping News ( )

Oh, the trials of the Blood family of Cream Hill, Vermont ... they couldln't change with the times, so the times changed them. good for some, not so good for others.

Written before The Shipping News. Quite impressive. The postcard aspect a bit gimmicky. She leaves a lot of the plot out and makes you fill it in yourself, and indeed you feel you can. In both books, the main character is a man – again, this is impressive. One thing I don't like is the display of knowledge that calls attention to the author's mind. You shouldn't find yourself stopping to wonder how she knows all this stuff.

Both she and Jane Smiley write beautifully about loss in American life, specifically small farms. Such eloquence, such restraint. ( )

This was the second Proulx book I read, after The Shipping News and I have to say I liked it even more. ( )

The images from ”Postcards” seem to be etched indelibly in my mind. Think of a favorite movie - and the scene or image that will never go away. That's what this book offers: vivid, emotional mental pictures.
"Postcards" is a darker work than Proulx's better known "The Shipping News" but all the hallmarks are there. The descriptions of nature are breathtaking, the dialogue acute, the control consummate. The author unerringly chooses the right phrase, or positions the right word just so. She is a master of language and image. She has an amazing ability with words - every sentence a delight that you can pick up and turn over, inspecting from different angles.
Without giving too much away, it is the story of two lost lives. The first occurs on page one - but it is the chronicle of the second that forms the rest of the book. Loyal Blood - by nature as well as by name – sends stolen postcards to his family over a span of 40 years, oblivious to the ripples that follow from his youthful actions.
"Postcards" is slow and deliberate in its pacing, but fragmented in voice and narrative. This can be daunting, but it mirrors the weary plodding of the characters through lives shaped more by accident than their struggle to survive. Their lives are grueling, nearly devoid of love and affection, and they doggedly accept this fate as if nothing else existed in the world. They move through their worlds, leaving no mark, and yet you can't help be fascinated by them.
Even though "Postcards" is as beautifully written and original as "The Shipping News," it is a profoundly depressing read. Instead of the passionate, moving sadness of tragedy, the story is a slow, steady grinding of one catastrophe after another. It seemed at times like a pointless chronology of the lives of sad people making profoundly stupid choices with little grace.
You can see why this won the Pen Faulkner award – which is amazing for a first novel, and made Proulx the first woman to win this award. But, after reading this novel, I still have no idea how I feel about it. I found it both difficult to read and difficult to stop.
I can't say I enjoyed the book in a lighthearted sense, but I certainly did enjoy it the literary appreciation sense. On a technical level, the writing leaves me speechless with admiration. But, ultimately, I found I couldn't care much about the characters' lows when there were no highs to measure them against, and instead of a plot the book seemed simply a litany of sorrows.
If you are looking to get to know Annie Proulx, this is probably not the book to start with. Read "The Shipping News" or "That Old Ace in the Hole" first; both leave more positive impressions and have more sympathetic stories and characters. ( )

Author won Pulitzer Prize for 'The Shipping News' in 1994.