"Close Range" Annie Proulx

Proulx wrote 3 sets of Wyoming Stories, "Bad Dirt," "Fine Just the Way It Is" and this book.  I had bought "Bad Dirt" in the spring of 2009 and read it while on a service trip to Nashville while on spring break.  I devoured it.  Next I listened to "Fine Just the Way It Is" read by Will Patton.  It has taken me the last three years to finish "Close Range."

Don't get me wrong, I love the writing, so it didn't take me three years to finish it because of a lack of interest or desire.  Rather it was because Proulx demands more attention than other writers.  Some of the reviews say that Proulx is not an easy read, and I agree that she shies away from the comfortable Hollywood characters that we see in very popular writing.  To steal some words from the critical reviews, she writes with a "brutal beauty" about "stoical, hardheaded" characters who suffer "gut-twisting losses" but can be "ravaged by the closest passion available."  Proulx does not follow convention by creating well-worn characters and lives.  We could will them to fit a mold we are comfortable with, but it is better not to get comfy, you will still be satisfied.

Proulx uses magical realism in several stories in the series like she does in "A pair of spurs."  As different people come to possess a beautiful pair of spurs, the spurs take possession of the people.  The spurs seem to allow the people to act on passions that they would have buried otherwise, sometimes with disastrous results.

The other story I want to mention is "Brokeback Mountain."  I had seen the movie when it came out on DVD  and didn't realize it was from a short story written by Proulx.  In retrospect, I see how the similarity to the characterizations in "The Shipping News" and "Accordion Crimes."  Before I read this 31-page story, I wondered how much detail was provided by the story and how much detail was added by the screen writer for the feature-length film?  Surprisingly, the story tells it all.  This explains one reason Proulx is not an easy read - so much is packed into each sentence and paragraph - the mood, the scene, the history and the action.  These stories cannot be ready by skimming; you have to pay attention.

However, how much of how I felt while reading "Brokeback Mountain" was informed from the movie?  It was the last of the 3-book series of stories that I read, and I have a much better feel for Proulx's Wyoming now than when I saw the movie, so I'm guessing not all of how I felt comes from the images in the movie.  But I'm sure they helped.

I'm a little disappointed that there are no more Wyoming stories to read, but look forward to anything Proulx writes.