Fine Just the Way It Is
Wyoming Stories 3
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Annie Proulx, an "unforgettable" (Miami Herald) and "vivid" (Oprah Daily) collection of stories set in Wyoming.
Winner of two O. Henry Prizes, Annie Proulx has been anthologized in nearly every major collection of great American stories. Her bold, inimitable language, her exhilarating eye for detail, her dark sense of humor, and her compassion inform this profoundly compelling collection of stories.
Proulx creates a fierce, visceral panorama of American folly and fate in these nine dazzling stories about multiple generations of Americans struggling through life in the West. Each character is a pioneer of a sort—some are billionaires, some are escapists, and some just think the rest of the country has it wrong. Deeply sympathetic to the men and women fighting to survive in this harsh place, Proulx turns their lives into fiction with the power of myth, leaving the reader in awe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The steely Proulx (The Shipping News, etc.) returns with another astonishing series of hardscrabble lives lived in the sparse, inhospitable West, where one mistake can put you on a long-winding trail to disaster. "Family Man" is set in the Mellowhorn Home for old cowboys and aging ranch widows, where resident curmudgeon Ray Forkenbrock shares memories of his father with his granddaughter and an eavesdropping caretaker; the secret he reveals gives new meaning to the word "relative." In two demonically clever riffs on human weakness, "I've Always Loved This Place" and "Swamp Mischief," the Devil, accompanied by his secretary, Duane Fork, must entertain himself thinking up new ways to bother the living and the dead, as temptation is no longer a necessary evil. Saving the best for last, "Tits-up in a Ditch" breaks new literary ground with the gut-wrenching tale of an Iraq veteran who returns to her family raw with grief. Pioneer homesteaders facing drought and debt give way to modern-day hippies trying to lose themselves in the vanishing wilderness and real estate developers out to make a buck unforgettable characters in nine stories that range in tone from crude cowboy humor to heartbreaking American tragedy.
