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A review by rcthomasthings
That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
4.0
I had read The Shipping News and I particularly wanted to read more Proulx because I love her characters which I find to be just slightly left-of-centre. The way she makes them just slightly quirky, but not so much that they're unbelievable, is really great writing. This comes into her locations, oft-times made up, and other things like events surrounding the story and food and drink.
The first couple of chapters I admittedly found tough. Proulx's descriptions of places are second to none. She has a way of giving so much detail without the writing being clunky. This is generally a plus in her writing. However, as she packs so much in, I did find myself having to go back read bits over again to fully get a sense of the descriptions.
Just as with The Shipping News, Proulx really immerses the reader in a unique world that is both like nothing you've experienced before but at the same time feels very familiar, building on the sense of a tight knit community of people living on their own terms, at their own pace, and on their own level.
There's a constant push and pull with Bob Dollar's story as he explores the Panhandle for potential corporate hog farm sites, and you never quite know whether he's going to succeed or not. I was curious, as ever, to see how it would end, and although by the last chapter I thought I'd figured it out, Proulx still managed to give it a subtle twist to end on a slightly different note.
'Subtle' and 'slight' seem to be common tools of Proulx. In the offbeat worlds she creates, nothing tends to be quite 'here' or 'there', but rather exists on a plain of its own.
The first couple of chapters I admittedly found tough. Proulx's descriptions of places are second to none. She has a way of giving so much detail without the writing being clunky. This is generally a plus in her writing. However, as she packs so much in, I did find myself having to go back read bits over again to fully get a sense of the descriptions.
Just as with The Shipping News, Proulx really immerses the reader in a unique world that is both like nothing you've experienced before but at the same time feels very familiar, building on the sense of a tight knit community of people living on their own terms, at their own pace, and on their own level.
There's a constant push and pull with Bob Dollar's story as he explores the Panhandle for potential corporate hog farm sites, and you never quite know whether he's going to succeed or not. I was curious, as ever, to see how it would end, and although by the last chapter I thought I'd figured it out, Proulx still managed to give it a subtle twist to end on a slightly different note.
'Subtle' and 'slight' seem to be common tools of Proulx. In the offbeat worlds she creates, nothing tends to be quite 'here' or 'there', but rather exists on a plain of its own.