That Old Ace in the Hole - Hardcover

Proulx

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684813076 ISBN 13: 9780684813073

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Synopsis

In "That Old Ace in the Hole," Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx has written an exhilarating story brimming with language, history, landscape, music, and love. The novel, Proulx's fourth, is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, and he takes a job with Global Pork Rind -- his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms. Dollar finds himself in a Texas town called Woolybucket, whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country. These are tough men and women who survived tornadoes and dust storms, and witnessed firsthand the demise of the great cattle ranches. Now it's feed lots, hog farms, and ever-expanding drylands. Dollar settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease's Old Dog Cafe, targets Ace and Tater Crouch's ranch for Global Pork, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old owners will hold on to their land, even though their children want no part of it. Robust, often bawdy, strikingly original and intimate, "That Old Ace in the Hole" tracks the vast waves of change that have shaped the American landscape and character over the past century -- and in Bob Dollar, Proulx has created one of the most irresistible characters in contemporary fiction.

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: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0684813076
• ISBN 13: 9780684813073
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384