Annie Proulx: American Author Challenge

^At Bird Cloud

Edna Ann Proulx is an American journalist and author. She was born on August 22, 1935, in Norwich, Connecticut. In her early years, she lived in tiny towns in Vermont, spending her time fishing, hunting, and canoeing, and began working as a freelance journalist.
She became the first woman to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel Postcards (1992). For her next work, The Shipping News, Proulx won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 1998, her short work "Brokeback Mountain" was named an O. Henry Prize Story. It was made into a feature film in 2005. In addition to these, Proulx has written a number of nonfiction, fiction and short-story collections.
She maintains a second home in Newfoundland, but currently lives, on her ranch, Bird Cloud, in Wyoming.

**This is part of our American Author Challenge 2016. This author will be read in June. The general discussion thread can be found right here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/209611

I read and loved The Shipping News many years ago. I also loved Close Range, her collection that featured the story, Brokeback Mountain, which was turned into an incredible film, (with a screenplay by another AAC alum, Larry McMurtry).

This is one of the very rare times, where I am not sure which of her books, I will read this month, since I do not have anything on the TBR shelves or on the audio shelves. Fortunately, I want to read most of her work, so picking something should not be hard. Linda recommended Accordion Crimes and Barkskins, her new, big sprawling novel, comes out in June. Sweet timing, eh?

Very sweet timing on the new novel Mark. I'm a big Proulx fan, so delighted I can add her new one to my wishlist. I'll request it from the library once their website starts working again (maybe it's taking the public holiday too...)

>4 charl08: Funny, I can't log into my online library system either. Come on, people, we have books to search for and request!!

I really loved both The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain. I have Close Range on the shelves, so I might read that one. Or I might reread The Shipping News - it's calling to me.

I plan to read The Shipping News, which I have on my shelves, along with Accordion Crimes and Close Range. Spoiled for choice!

I read Shipping News years ago and really liked it. A few years ago I read Bird Cloud: A Memoir. This book was a treat for me to read, but I think it was chore for her to write. It is about Proulx's experiences while she was building her house in the wilds of Wyoming. The house proved to be a trial to build, but a joy to her while she was doing so. In this book, (which is rather short) she really managed to capture the starkness of the landscape in much the same way that Ken Haruf did in his series of books about Eastern Colorado. It seems that Proulx likes isolated and out-of-the-mainstream places. Then she goes and writes about them and they become not so isolated. I am not sure what happened to the house, because I think that I remember reading that she sold it at some point and moved somewhere else. I should look that up and find out. In the end, I don't think she liked Wyoming that much.

I'm going to be reading her new novel Barkskins, as soon as it comes into land mid month. I may also reread The Shipping News as it is many years since I did.

She also has a non-fiction book out about the West Texas panhandle. The area around Amarillo. That Old Ace in the Hole.

I am reading Bird Cloud. Can't wait to sink into Wyoming!

I have Bird Cloud on my shelves and a reread of The Shipping News is always possible.

Okay, I have requested the audio of Bird Cloud and I requested the collection, Heart Songs and Other Stories, in print. Hope to get to them both.

I have not been doing well with getting to AAC books this year but I have a copy of The Shipping News in hand and will aim to get to that one in June. It was one of the books I "rescued" during my work cleanup last month.

I had to go hunting in the library again and also came up with The Shipping News for this month's AAC read. Doing the challenge has shown me more about my buying/reading habits. For the AAC I usually have to resort to the library but I am more likely to have BAC or CAC books already on my shelves. Hmm.

I have Close Range on the shelf, so now is a good time to get to that. I'm not a huge fan, but I'm always willing to keep trying. :)

I think I am going with Bird Cloud, which can double for the Non-Fiction challenge.

I have had Accordion Crimes on my shelf for years. Now is the time . . .

The Shipping News is still one of my all-time favorite novels. And I loved Accordion Crimes and Close Range, as well. I'm not sure I ever read Postcards. I have put Barkskins on hold at the library but it is still on order; they've ordered 60 copies and I'm number 365 in the queue. I may just have to buy it.

I finished The Shipping News: A Novel last night. I enjoyed the look at life in Newfoundland ad Proulx style of writing.

Loving all the Proulx love here :-)

The Shipping News. Hope the news is good.

Go Bill! Go Bill! It was my first Proulx and remains my favorite. It's a helluva read!

>22 weird_O: The News is great! I'm due for a reread.

I have struggled with Proulx in the past, and I am struggling now with Close Range. I think the contrast between last month's book and this month, given the very similar setting, is that Proulx writes all the harshness of that life, but there's no joy.
I will carry on, because the third story -The Blood Bay- was great and I hope there are a couple more like it.

Just finished Bird Cloud and wrote my review here. Short summary: I liked it and would recommend it.

I sat out in the yard this morning for awhile (in the much cooler, more comfortable weather) and read a bit of The Shipping News this morning. Not too far into it but I am liking it so far.

Bird Cloud is on the pile next to my reading chair, waiting for me to finish another book or two, so I can start it.

I started The Shipping News and got a few chapters in, then looked at the length of the book and realized that I wouldn't be able to handle the style of the writing for that long. I took it back to the library and picked up Postcards instead. Much more my style.

I chose to listen to Annie Proulx's Bird Cloud - my third memoir read as part of the 2016 AAC. Overall, interesting but my take away is the book may be most useful as a "lessons learned" story to help temper the "dreams" one may hold when custom building a home.

"The first early snows came and melted and we were into Indian Summer. The sky was an intense enamel blue, but the afternoon light had a dying, year's-end quality, a rich apricot color as though it fell through a cordial glass onto an oak table...

...It was a day for the birds."

- Heart Songs and Other Stories

I read the first 2 stories in this collection and I am surprised how raw and woodsy, it is. I really like her writing.

>29 Familyhistorian: Glad you found a better fit, Meg.

>30 lkernagh: I will be reading Bird Cloud soon, Lori. We will compare notes.

"The deep autumn came quickly. Abandoned cats and dogs skulked along the roads. The flare of leaves dies, the mountain moulted into grey-brown like a dull bird. A mood of destruction erupted when a bull got loose at the cattle auction house and trampled an elderly farmer, when a car was forced off the road by pimpled troublemakers throwing pumpkins. Hunters came for the deer and blood trickled along their fenders."

-Heart Songs and Other Stories

^Did Annie Proulx invent "hillbilly noir"? I am not sure, but she certainly had to be a front-runner, (this was first published in '88). Tough, raw-boned stories about the down-trodden in the wilds of New England. Bird-hunters, boozers and brawlers, all in shades of grey and brown. Throw in blood, unwashed bodies and a murder or two, and that should draw a perfect picture for you. Fans of Bonnie Jo Campbell & Donald Ray Pollock should eat this stuff up.

Proulx is an artist. She has an amazing command of the English language and is very expressive. Acknowledging all of that, I do not enjoy reading her work. I liked one story in this collection - The Blood Bay - which was a couple of pages long and reads like one of those tall tales told by cowboys. Reminded me of something my uncles or my grand-uncles would have told us at night by the fire. Overall, I find Proulx's work depressing and joyless. So very glad to be done with this book. :P

Sorry, Proulx doesn't work for you, Jenn. I completely understand your reasons though. Heart songs is pretty bleak stuff too, although it doesn't bother me as much, as long as I don't have a steady diet of it.

It has been many years, since I read The Shipping news but I do not remember it being a "downer".

That's what it is, Jenn (@ 25)! I just finished Close Range, wondering why I didn't take to it, then stopped by here to catch up. You pegged it. There's no joy, or when it does come, it's flawed and fleeting. In her stories, the characters live a miserable existence, and those who do manage to leave, return broken or dead. I thought her writing bore an outstanding sense of place. She has a way with words.

"Men had that flaw in them, Inez thought, to go over the cliff of events and fall precipitously into moral ruin." (p. 165)

In her acknowledgements, she writes, “In Wyoming not the least fantastic situation is the determination to make a living ranching in this tough and unforgiving place.” And that’s exactly how she’s painted every story in this collection. Both the land and its people in her stories are tough and unforgiving.

If that was her goal, she did a great job with it. But such unrelenting misery did not make a good reading experience for me. I much preferred Ivan Doig’s This House of Sky with its toughness AND joy, in a very similar setting.

>36 countrylife: I agree about her writing having an outstanding sense of place. Reading The Shipping News, I felt the "Newfie" experience.

I didn't get this section of a story in Close Range:

She wanted to ride and she would. . . . She rode up the wash. To her right in a clump of rabbitbrush a large female wolf appeared, watching her with yellow cross-eyes. Its fur shivered in erratic gusts. Without thinking she uncoiled her rope, made a loop and threw. As she took a few dallies around the horn the wolf leaped straight up into the air and the dun mare reared. The wolf hauled back, squatting on its haunches, and the mare reared a second time, walked backward on her hind feet like a circus horse, dropped, put her head down and bucked violently; Inez went through the windshield, landed on her chin and skidded, neck broken, mouth open, lower teeth plowing red dirt.

She's riding a horse. There's no windshield. There shouldn't be that kind of a mistake in a book by so renowned an author.

Barkskins has just come in to land, but as I've just started a tome, I'm probably not going to get to it for another week or so.

I agree, Lois. I've only read two of her books, but she's great giving readers a sense of place. I read The Shipping News six years ago. There was a lot of misery in that one, as well, but not unrelentingly so. I did enjoy it more than this one.

>36 countrylife: I think it was interesting to read Ivan Doig and then Annie Proulx back to back. It may have enhanced the contrast. Tough and unforgiving is a perfect description. But what did you think of the really short story about the cowboys and the man eating horse? I did get a kick out of that one. I'll probably send it to my dad.

>38 countrylife: I totally missed that. *going back to my copy to look* I wonder if my brain just fixed it? That would indeed be a big error.

I enjoyed rereading The Shipping News this month, which I took in on audio this time, brilliantly narrated by Paul Hecht (don't let his cold delivery on the audio sample deter you!). I also plan on listening to Brokeback Mountain again, as soon as the library delivers, and just tonight completed Barkskins, for which I wrote a review: http://www.librarything.com/topic/224327#5622346

I abandoned Bird Cloud. I found the early section very boring, her family lineage etc. I think I will reread The Shipping News instead as I loved this.

Just finished my second book for this challenge: Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. I had seen Brokeback Mountain when it was first released and thought it was a powerful movie. I never gave much thought to what had been the basis for the screenplay. This book includes the original short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, and brief essays by each on the process of getting the story to film.

>38 countrylife: Inez went through the windshield

That's just cowboy slang for being thrown off forward from a bucking horse. Not a mistake, just a colloquialism

I am SO glad you clarified that, streamsong!

>45 streamsong: Sister and aunt of cowboys here, was just about to make the same point! We've used that expression for wrecks on bikes and motorcycles too--or even for being unbelievably clumsy and stumbling face first over your own feet.

^I decided to listen to Bird Cloud, which I found on audio. The added treat here is the narrator is Joan Allen, one of my favorite actresses. The book was a bit dry in the beginning, as Proulx gave her family history but once the narrative shifted to building her Wyoming home, it has picked up.

Revisited Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx last night on audio with Campbell Scott narrating. Once again, I was blown away with how much her characters go through and just how much story she manages to pack into this incredibly short novella. It's really no more than a short story (included in Close Range, as Mark mentions above), but does it ever pack a punch. Not that I should be making unfair comparisons, but somehow, that hour or less of story affected me much more than 20 hours of Barkskins. Or maybe it's just the concentrated effect which leaves such an impression. I don't think I need to tell anyone the story is about two rough cowboys falling in love, do I? Definitely recommended, for the force of the writing. ★★★★½

I finished reading The Shipping News over the weekend. Hmmm. Proulx sure is attracted to beautiful but desolate places. Life strenuous, seldom really rewarding, in such places. Good places to read about so you don't have to go there for longer than a touristy one or two weeks.

>50 weird_O: Your comment illustrates perfectly my struggle with Proulx. Go read some more Ivan Doig. *grin* My dad grew up on a sheep ranch in a similar kind of place. Utah high country instead of Wyoming. Life was sometimes strenuous, very hard work, but often rewarding. He loved his childhood. He tells great stories. There's more joy than Ms. Proulx finds. Her work has its place. Some people live hard and ugly lives. We can have a look without having to live it, I suppose. Perspective is amazing. One of the reasons I love to read.

#50
I read Shipping News soon after it won the Pulitzer and really liked it. However, since then I have tried to read some of her other work and I start but they just don't grab me. The only other work of hers that I have managed to complete was Bird Cloud and that memoir almost caused me to not like her as a person. As soon as Mark finishes Bird Cloud I will post some comments.

I started Birdcloud and so far I am ENJOYING the family history. The French-Canadian twist is very interesting.

>53 banjo123: Glad you are enjoying Bird Cloud, Rhonda. I finished it today. I thought it got better and better as it went along. The last 1/3rd was my favorite.

I'm surprised nobody's posted a link to today's NYT profile on Annie Proulx: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/books/review/annie-proulx-by-the-book.html?emc...

(Illustration by Jillian Tamaki)

>55 Smiler69: Thanks, Ilana. I did not see this. Proulx is a prickly pear isn't she? But I still find her intriguing.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

I loved this quirky novel of imperfect people making a place for themselves in an inhospitable place. Full of endearing characters that never really feel inauthentic, the dark humor throughout prevents it from being completely bleak. Quoyle is a wonderfully awkward anti-hero whose love for his children and growing sense of himself and his own possibilities adds a real warmth to the story.

4.5 stars

You make me want to read it again.

I'm really enjoying Barkskins - glad it's on the kindle, it must be a massive tome on paper.

I had read Close Range soon after the Brokeback Mountain film came out, and wasn't enchanted with the collection. I doubt I would have returned to another read of her stuff, without the AAC challenge.

But I'm finding The Shipping News almost unputdown-able.

Due to comments above, I've also picked up the audio of Brokeback Mountain from the library.

Interesting article, Ilana. Thanks for posting. Other than her childhood favorites, I'm not familiar with *any* of the authors and books she likes with the one exception of Jim Corbett’s “Man-Eaters of Kumaon which was a favorite of my X. Hee,hee that's actually pretty bizarre.

>57 katiekrug: Sums it up perfectly!

>59 charl08: I listened to the audio version, but yes, it must be a hefty volume!

>60 streamsong: None of the authors mentioned was familiar to me either. Glad I'm not alone!

>59 charl08: yup big tome, I hope to start it next week.

>57 katiekrug: I endorse your description of this wonderful book I have just reread, except I give it 5 *.

>60 streamsong:, >61 Smiler69: Surprising that neither of you recognize any of the authors in this list (forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you) : "Michael Ondaatje, Lydia Davis, Les Murray, Alice Munro, Russell Banks are a few. Some of the writers I most admired have died in the last few years — Aidan Higgins, Dermot Healy, Robert Hughes, Peter Matthiessen, Umberto Eco, Wislawa Szymborska."

Many of them are not familiar to me either, but there are some names on that list that are fairly widely talked about around LT, and even a couple whose work has been in the bestseller/adapted into movies category. Ondaatje and Munro are both Canadian Author Challenge selections this year. Russell Banks wrote a very long novel about John Brown titled Cloudsplitter, which I read years ago (which is why I'm not bothering with The Good Lord Bird, which may be excellent, but I've done with John Brown); Peter Matthiessen wrote At Play in the Fields of the Lord, as well as The Snow Leopard and won the National Book Award for Shadow Country in 2008---maybe he should be considered for our next AAC. Umberto Eco, who died earlier this year, wrote The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.

>64 laytonwoman3rd: Whoops, looks like the typo fairy came in and snarfed up an "m". Don't you love the ones that the spelling program can't check? If you check out my library, you'll see I've read quite a few of the ones you mentioned, and I'm sure Ilana has, too.

>65 streamsong: I'm still confused. " If you check out my library, you'll see I've read quite a few of the ones you mentioned, and I'm sure Ilana has, too." That being the case, what did you mean in >60 streamsong:? And what "m" did the typo fairy run off with?

>66 laytonwoman3rd: changed my 'many' to any. I haven't read **many** of the authors she mentioned. Sorry you were confused by my huge lack of syntax.

It's definitely true that I haven't read any of the ones she currently has on her nightstand.

I read Postcards for my Proulx read. The beginning grabbed me as it started with a killing and there were emotional scenes in the first chapters but then the story kind of drifted on. Which, I guess, is a reflection of how life goes. So a clever depiction of how the struggle wears people down but I prefer my fiction to be more positive.

>36 countrylife: There's no joy, or when it does come, it's flawed and fleeting. Much the same feeling in Postcards as well.

>67 streamsong: AH.... I looked for that edit, but I guess you hadn't made it yet. Thanks for the clarification.

>64 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks for that, Linda. I guess I should have qualified my statement as well. It was obviously a throwaway comment on my part, since several of the authors on that list are indeed familiar to me, and I've read a few of them already, like Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje, Eco's The Name of the Rose. Peter Matthiessen is on my wishlist. Some of the others don't ring a bell, which doesn't mean I'm not somehow familiar with them, just that I have terrible name recall.

>70 Smiler69: Well, thank YOU, Ilana, for verifying that I'm not losing my mind! Yesterday was one of those days when I never seemed to know what I was doing, and conversations went haywire, so I thought maybe it was just me.

>71 laytonwoman3rd: Glad to help! :-)

I have lots and lots of days like that. Most of the time I'm happy if I can manage to wake up before 1 pm... never mind ever actually coming fully awake!

*wave* Have a great weekend!

I'm still buried in Barkskins, just (cough) seven hours to go, according to my kindle...

Well, finished Bird Cloud. Not perfect, but interestring. Now I want to read Barkskins!

Barkskins was very long, as I may have mentioned once or twice...
It's a rambling historical novel sweeping from French 18th century settlement to Eco warriors trying to understand forest history today. My favourite bits were the surreal deaths Proulx conjures up for her characters (which she apparently took from history). With so many people to account for, these range from the first ancestor in Canada hit on the head in the forest by unknown persons to awful accidents in the logging trade (lots of these: if I've ever considered it, I really wouldn't now). It's got a really strong message about the disaster humans have been to our woodlands: I found myself convinced rather than annoyed by her unabashed advocacy for the diverity of forests.

Inspired by Ilana's post >49 Smiler69: I finished listening to Brokeback Mountain. I had read this years ago when I read Close Range, but totally agree with Ilana on the power of this audiobook. Crying while driving is never good.

>49 Smiler69: and >77 streamsong: ok I caved in, I read the story years ago, so I dropped it into my Audible account.

I don't listen to a lot of audio books, though have quite a few, just in case... I think I'd listen more if I were a driver.