Fine Just the Way It Is

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.

‘Proulx is at her urgent, muscular best when elbow deep in the romance of hard souls and bittersweet lives. As a portraitist of the fearsome, awesome Wyoming landscape she is peerless. To read her descriptions of the West is to fall hopelessly and inescapable in love.’ Melanie McGrath, Evening Standard‘A sublimely good writer about landscape and the relationship of man to landscape…Proulx's brilliance is to hedge her hard comedy with tremendous tenderness …These are meticulous, wonderfully actualised descriptions of small lives lived in a place that is lonely and unchanging, and heartbreakingly beautiful, and that is trying to kill you.’ Sam Leith, Daily Telegraph‘Like “Brokeback Mountain”, it scrutinises and salutes the near-mute stoicism of people trapped in implacably adverse circumstances. And on the subject Proulx is incomparable.’ Peter Kemp, Sunday Times'Compressed, evocative prose conveys the sharp details of hard times in an unforgiving landscape.' Financial Times‘This volume finely exhibits Proulx's distinctive skills' Sunday Times'Despite their shared backdrop, these tales span cultures and centuries, depicting characters as diverse as a couple of young homesteaders trying to muddle through a harsh 18th century winter, and a woman raised by a '"trash rancher" returning home from Iraq. Nine in all, they vary exhilaratingly in pace, tone and length- in everything that is, but accomplishment.' Daily Mail