false 1781879 15 Returning to the territory of "Brokeback Mountain" (in her first volume of Wyoming Stories) and Bad Dirt (her second), National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx delivers a stunning and visceral new collection. In <I>Fine Just the Way It Is</i>, she has expanded the limits of the form. Her stories about multiple generations of Americans struggling through life in the West are a ferocious, dazzling panorama of American folly and fate.<P> "Every ranch...had lost a boy," thinks Dakotah Hicks as she drives through "the hammered red landscape" of Wyoming, "boys smiling, sure in their risks, healthy, tipped out of the current of life by liquor and acceleration, rodeo smashups, bad horses, deep irrigation ditches, high trestles, tractor rollovers and 'unloaded' guns. Her boy, too...The trip along this road was a roll call of grief." <P> Proulx's characters try to climb out of poverty and desperation but get cut down as if the land itself wanted their blood. 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 -- and leaves the reader in awe. The 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 and her dark sense of humor make this a profoundly compelling collection. 3588688 9 9 2008 Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 (Wyoming Stories) total:371|5:52|4:153|3:128|2:29|1:9| 371 1323 762 135 3 1 false false Wed Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 15:51:32 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 10 11:35:42 -0700 2008 “That was the trouble with Wyoming; everything you ever did or said kept pace with you right to the end.”

When it comes to description, Annie Proulx is undoubtedly one of the best and most unique writers out there. With her blunt, unsparing prose, a fierce intellect and a coal blac...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Sep 06 10:23:03 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 06 10:23:11 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jul 08 11:02:41 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 11:11:15 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:59:14 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:59:14 -0800 2009 Annie Proulx skillfully depicts lives of hardship and struggle against the seductive but unforgiving backdrop of Wyoming as she draws memorable, complex characters whose sufferings resonate deeply with readers. Her lovely prose is as spare, straightforward, and uncompromising as the landscape she de...

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"The Family M...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 09:42:12 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 14:38:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false true Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 09:59:07 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 13:57:59 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Dec 18 07:22:40 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 18 07:28:12 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Oct 30 13:56:20 -0700 2009 Thu Nov 05 07:49:57 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Dec 16 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 06:53:07 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 16 05:39:22 -0800 2008
Fine Just the Way It Is has some good stories: "Tits-Up ...more...]]> 1 0 false false Fri Mar 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 05:31:02 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 06:02:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 13:34:12 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 13:51:45 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 18 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 15 06:50:57 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 18:47:53 -0800 2009 1
Meaning th...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 09 06:02:17 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 09 06:02:46 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 21 13:54:21 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 21 14:09:07 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 10:13:16 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 16:17:32 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Sep 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 04:45:59 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 06 07:36:48 -0700 2009
For a while, I wondered if I'd made a mistake by reading the collection of short stories in on...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Oct 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 13:26:43 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 13 20:35:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Feb 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 18:02:33 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 04:04:26 -0800 2009

The reason I gave this collection of short stories (Proulx's third in a series of Wyoming stories)three stars (and not more)is NOT because of the writing, which is top-notch but because the content. It was a tough read. All the stori...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 29 16:17:38 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 10:17:50 -0700 2009 and flowers among bare rocks can be "too beautiful to look at
for long." I liked all nine stories, in different ways, though
least the literal-Devil allegories. In which, for instance,
the Dev...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1781879