That Old Ace in the Hole - Softcover

Proulx, Annie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007151527 ISBN 13: 9780007151523

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2009

Synopsis

Paperback. Pub Date :2009-10-01 Pages: 384 Language: English Publisher:. HarperCollins UK A brilliant novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Proulx. author of 'The Shipping News' and' Brokeback Mountain '' That Old Ace in the Hole 'is a richly textured story of one mans struggle to make good in the inhospitable ranch country of the Texas panhandle. told with razor-sharp wit and a masterly sense of place.Some folks in the Texas panhandle do not like hog farms.But Bob Dollar. the newly hired hog site scout for Global Pork Rind. intends to do his job.Bob must contend with tough men and women like ancient Freda Beautyrooms. who controls a ranch he covets. and Ace Crouch. the windmiller who defies the hog farms.As Bob settles in at La Von Fronk's bunkhouse and lends a hand at Cy Frease's Old Dog Caf. he is forced to question everything.

About this title

Review:

‘Sometimes the laughs are prompted by joyously well-jointed plot devices, or by Proulx’s small, absurd observations. As often as not, the humour comes from the unmistakable edginess and quirkiness of Proulx’s prose. It is hard to think of any living writer who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens, with the exception of Proulx.’
A N Wilson, New Statesman

‘Proulx’s own ace in the hole is her brilliance at evoking place and landscape. She sets about drawing the vast distances and parched flatlands of Texas with almost immeasurable skill.’ Alex Clark, Guardian

‘The travels and travails of Bob Dollar, and his habit of asking garrlous locals to tell stories about the old days, allow her to build up a rich and many-layered portrait of the region. The reader gets to pluck the fruits of all that research and through the magic of her prose become engrossed in subjects like windmill repairs and the history of barbed wire.’ Richard Grant, Telegraph Magazine

‘A kind-hearted and intelligent novel.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Proulx has a first class eye and ear.’ Adam Mars-Jones, Observer

‘Brilliantly written.’ Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

From the Back Cover:

Some folks in the Texas panhandle do not like hog farms. But Bob Dollar, the newly-hired hog site scout for Global Pork Rind, intends to do his job. He is also determined not to turn out like his parents who left him on his Uncle Tam's doorstep as a child, and afflicted by the tendency to believe his own daydreams – to the point of forgetting that he made them up in the first place.

Bob ends up in Woolybucket, a town whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of booms and busts in panhandle country – cattle-ranching, tornadoes, dust storms, gas and oil days, feedlot proliferation. These tough men and women seem to grow stronger with age, seasoned by the rigours of their life, from ancient Freda Beautyrooms who controls a ranch Bob covets, to Ace Crouch, the windmiller who defies the hog farms. They aren't the only obstacles in Bob's path. As he settles in at La Von Fronk's bunkhouse and lends a hand at Cy Frease's Old Dog Café, Bob is forced to question everything,

With characteristic gusto and razor wit, Annie Proulx serves up a rich mix of history, landscape and quixotic Texan life in this novel about chasing dreams in a corporate world.

Praise for Annie Proulx

On 'Close Range:'
"A masterpiece"
'Daily Telegraph'

"Maybe the best writer in America"
'Independent on Sunday'

"Seismic...A brilliant writer at the height of her powers. Wickedly funny"
'Sunday Telegraph'

"Proulx's command of the raw idiom of rodeo-riders and cowhands is astonishing; it gives her the power to summon up entire lives within a few paragraphs"
'Esquire'

On 'The Shipping News:'
"To read 'The Shipping News' is to yearn to be sitting in The Flying Squid Lunchstop, eating Seal Fin Curry, watching the icebergs clink together in the bay"
'The Times'

"As stark and ruggedly beautiful as the storm-battered coast of Newfoundland itself"
'Sunday Telegraph'

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0007151527
• ISBN 13: 9780007151523
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384