Close Range
Editorial Review - Books+Publishing - Thorpe-Bowker and ContributorsAnnie Proulx's new collection of short stories includes the acclaimed `Brokeback Mountain', along with 10 other stories all set in the harsh and unrelenting landscape of Wyoming. Life here is tough, and `the tragedy of people counts for nothing although the signs of misadventure are everywhere' among the bull-riding, gun-toting, hard-drinking and hard-working folk of the ranchlands. Although ... Read full review
Review: Close range
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsA vigorous second collection from Proulx (after Heart Songs and Other Stories, 1988): eleven nicely varied stories set in the roughhewn wasteland that one narrator calls a "97,000-square-miles dog's breakfast of outside exploiters, Republican ranchers and scenery." The characters here are windburned, fatalistic westerners stuck in the harsh lives they've made for themselves in this bitter demi-paradise. They include: hardworking, luckless ranchers (in the painfully concise "Job History," and the sprawling "Pair a Spurs," the latter a wry tale of divorce, sexual urgency, and sheer cussedness that bears fleeting resemblances to Proulx's Accordion Crimes); aging hellion Josanna Skiles (of "A Lonely Coast") and the lover who can neither tame her nor submit to her; a sagebrush Bluebeard and his inquisitive wife (in the amusingly fragmentary "55 Miles to the Gas Pump"); and an itinerant rodeo cowboy (in "The Mud Below") whose vagrant spirit stubbornly kicks against memories of his disastrous childhood. Two stories are, effectively, miniature novels: "People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water," about memorably dysfunctional feuding families; and "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World," which begins as a collection of random eccentricities, then coheres into a grimly funny parody of the family saga. "The Blood Bay" retells a familiar western folktale, adding just a whiff of Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale." And two prizewinning pieces brilliantly display Proulx's trademark whipsaw wit and raw, lusty language. "The Half-Skinned Steer" wrests a rich portrayal of the experience of unbelonging from the account of an old man's journey westward, for his brother's funeral, back to the embattled home he'd spent decades escaping. And the powerful "Brokeback Mountain" explores with plangent understated compassion the lifelong sexual love between two cowboys destined for separation, and the harsh truth that "if you can't fix it you've got to stand it." Gritty, authoritative stories of loving, losing, and bearing the consequences. Nobody else writes like this, and Proulx has never written better.
Review: Close Range (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - Kenneth - GoodreadsJust re- read "Brokeback Mountain" last night and it is far better even than I remembered. It is now officially my favorite love story of all time. The fact that probably the best movie of 1997 was ... Read full review
Review: Close Range (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - Carinya Kappler - GoodreadsHaving read and enjoyed Annie Proulx's novel “The Shipping News” I fully expected to love her collation of short stories included in this book and set in Wyoming. My only reservation was that it is ... Read full review
Review: Close Range (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - Bennet - GoodreadsI recently reread this and just want to say (again and again) that I love it. I am awed by the talent for authentically, seamlessly and irresistibly writing the vernacular of a place -- its landscape ... Read full review
Review: Close Range (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - Eric Bruen - GoodreadsI loved most of these stories. Brokeback mountain, which I had already read, was unsurprisingly my favourite. Proulx manages to fit so much into so few pages, and break your heart along the way. I ... Read full review
Review: Close Range: Wyoming Stories (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - M— - GoodreadsI picked this up to dabble in some more of Proulx's stories. I had very much enjoyed the film versions of her Brokeback Mountain and The Shipping News, although my enjoyment of the text stories was ... Read full review
Review: Close Range (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - Joanne in Canada - GoodreadsThis book seems to embody my impression of Proulx's writing: inconsistent. I loved The Shipping News, liked Postcards and didn't finish Accordion Crimes. The stories in this collection range from ... Read full review
Review: Wyoming Stories
User Review - Beth - GoodreadsHad to read "Brokeback Mountain" for a book club, but decided to read some other stories too. This would not make a good Welcome to Wyoming required read for new residents, but it is great. Read full review
Review: Close Range (Wyoming Stories #1)
User Review - GoodreadsSometimes there are so many characters you stop paying attention to who's saying what. Sometimes there are so many storylines, one emerging from another, you forget who is being described. I could ...
