Close Range

Annie Proulx published her first novel ‘Postcards’ in 1991 at the age of 56. ‘The Shipping News’ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award and the Irish Times International Prize. Her third novel, ‘Accordion Crimes’, was published in 1996. She is also the author of three short-story collections, ‘Heart Songs’ (1994), ‘Close Range’ (1999) and ‘Bad Dirt’ (2004). ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was made into an Oscar-winning film in 2005. ‘Fine Just the Way It Is’, her third collection of Wyoming short stories, was published in 2008.

‘Ms. Proulx writes with all the brutal beauty of one of her Wyoming snowstorms’, The Wall Street Journal‘A stunning collection of eleven tales about the hard lives of the ranchers, cowpokes and country wives who struggle to survive in an unforgiving environment. Written in a wonderfully flexible style that can be both spare and extravagant, her book has been hailed by American critics as a masterpiece.’ Daily Telegraph‘Like a mystic seeing the transfigured universe, she recreates the beauty of ordinary things.’ Independent on Sunday‘The detail is meticulous, the prose poetic and Proulx's fiction teems with life. Above all, her stories engage the heart. Magical.’ Tatler‘Proulx's style, compressed, elastic, hard-hitting, is inimitable: close to poetry but never self-indulgent. This is writing to be savoured.’ Sunday Telegraph‘These are tales we can almost feel in our bones.’ Sunday Times‘Individually, these 11 tales have a tautness and an urgency that are never less than exhilarating. Collectively, they encapsulate an entire, unremittingly bleak world. To find the pulse of humanity in such desperate lives betokens a writer of genius.’ Saturday Telegraph