Accordion Crimes: A Novel - Hardcover

Proulx, Annie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684832828 ISBN 13: 9780684832821

Publisher: Scribner, 1996

Synopsis

HardCover Pub Date: 1996 Jun Pages: 544 in Publisher: Scribner the Accordion Crimes traces the long odyssey of a button accordion an instrument made by a Sicilian who immigrates to New Orleans in 1891. Imprisoned in a round-up of Italian suspects after the political murder of the chief of police. the accordion maker is lynched. and his accordion falls into the hands of Apollo. a black steamboat screwman. The instrument begins its long. erratic voyage through 20th-century America. passing through the hands of the descendants of slaves. immigrants and their children. some of whom learn that the cost of becoming American is to surrender the private definition of self. Accordion Crimes is alive with vividly drawn characters who sometimes meet violent. strange ends. and who. at other times . succeed in a hard world. Filled with indelible images. Proulx's latest novel is charged w...

About this title

Review:

‘This novel confirms Proulx as one of the greatest American writers.’ Independent

‘The detail is breathtaking, her ear for dialogue matchless, her observation unsentimental, her pace infectious. She tackles death, sex and the gruesome with black hilarity and the skills of a born storyteller. Rich and dense, “Accordion Crimes” is a splendid novel.’ The Times

‘Annie Proulx has written an epic social history of America and the plight of the immigrant, which is astonishing in its breadth, heroic in the scale of its ambition and brilliant in its manner of realising them.’ Daily Mail

‘The glorious richness of the language continually makes you pause in wonder, the details pile up and surround you.’ Scotsman

‘Her range and scope are tremendous, shuttling through the warp of multiple cultures and spanning, by the end, a hundred years. And it is the range of detail that grips, richly concrete.’ Spectator

‘Vigorous, salty and extraordinary.’ The Times

About the Author:

Annie Proulx published her first novel ‘Postcards’ in 1991 at the age of 56. ‘The Shipping News’ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award and the Irish Times International Prize. Her third novel, ‘Accordion Crimes’, was published in 1996. She is also the author of three short-story collections, ‘Heart Songs’ (1994), ‘Close Range’ (1999) and ‘Bad Dirt’ (2004). ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was made into an Oscar-winning film in 2005. ‘Fine Just the Way It Is’, her third collection of Wyoming short stories, was published in 2008.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0684832828
• ISBN 13: 9780684832821
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 544