A review by alanbaxter
Bad Dirt by Annie Proulx

4.0

Some truly beautiful writing and some fantastic characters in these stories. One thing that stood out to me though - and I might be biased and making too much of this - but out of the 11 stories here, 4 are original to this collection. The others have been published in places like The New Yorker, Playboy and The Paris Review. "Serious" publications. Of the four originals, two (50%!) are heavily spec-fic/magical stories. Is Proulx secretly a genre writer trapped in "Literary" fiction? It feels like she's joyously sneaking fantasy into a collection hoping no one will notice. But like I said, I'm biased. Regardless, an excellent collection by a master of language and character.