I was a bookseller when Annie Proulx’s Shipping News became one of those runaway bestsellers every second customer seemed to want. I tried to get a few interested in Howard Norman’s The Bird Artist, another Blast favourite, also set in Newfoundland, but they were not to be swayed. I’d enjoyed Proulx’s novel enough to read her short stories, loving them for their stripped-down style, honed to near perfection.
From the macabre tale of how to deal with the mind-numbing boredom of living in the middle of nowhere to the thrills and spills of life on the rodeo circuit, Close Range brings the Wyoming wilderness vividly to life. Proulx’s characters are everyday folk scratching a living in a bleak landscape whose harshness permeates their lives and often leaves them more than a little twisted. The collection also includes the novella Brokeback Mountain, later made into a film.
What about you, any blasts from the past you’d like to share?
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Bleak, harsh landscape? I’m in!
She did make me want to visit Wyoming!
Brokeback Mountain is the only Proulx I’ve read – I actually taught it, in last year’s undergraduate literature seminar. The kids LOVED it.
That’s good to hear. It’s the longest piece by far in the collection. There are a few very brief stories, some of which brought me up short.
Ooh, interesting – because they were good, or traumatic (or both)?
One in particular at a gas station was pretty grizzly but also very good!