A review by carmyn
That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx

3.0

When I started this book I thought I would hate it. I started reading Shipping News a few years ago and couldn't get into that one either. It seems that Annie Proulx likes bleak landscapes and while I live on the ND prairie, I am not sure I enjoy them as much. The Texas Panhandle is about as depressing as it gets. I didn't care for the main character, Bob Dollar, but I started to come around toward the end. I never knew how terrible corporate hog farms are until I read this book, rich with terrible description. What won me over was the stories of the past. At times, Proulx's style reads a bit like Erdrich and I love her. The backstories and interweaving of families and characters in the fictional town of Woolybucket were wonderful.