Reviews

• Strong Postcards

  Annie Proulx (pronounced pru like in prune) has written three novels. Her second novel, The Shipping News, was awarded a number of prestigious prizes, one of which was the Pulitzer. But it is her first novel, Postcards, that draws me back more often than her other work. Why, I don't know, for I like all her fiction, short stories and novels both. Perhaps it's because there is a rawness to Postcards, the way she strikes out in her prose_verbs moving description, short phrases hitting like jabs to the head, humor atop tragedy, characters who are distinct and thus easily remembered. In this book, Annie Proulx took a full swing_literary, creative writing_not timid.

• Highly recommend

  Annie Proulx is a treasure! Her style of writing is unique, her descriptions like rock and roll poetry. Off-beat but colorful and on target. Postcards is the latest that I've read of hers along with Shipping News, Accordion Crimes, Ace in the Hole and Close Range, (beside Postcards which I just bought, the only one I haven't read at least twice). Postcards tells the story of a poor farming family in Vermont, starts with a murder and ascends from there into a web of narrative about the dad, mom, two sons and daughter, mostly the son who committed the crime. H attention research into to detail is amazing as in all of her books.

• Great American authoress

  Essential reading if you like Annie Proulx. Not for faint hearted

• Lack of proofreading really spoils this edition of a spell-binding novel.

  Annie Proulx is, as ever, an astonishing and exciting storyteller. However, the e-reader edition is simply not good enough for the purpose. Because 'Postcards' is written about country characters who use many American idioms in their speech, which the British reader must work out, it is infuriating to read content, which is incorrect on page after page. Among the many examples are: 'duty' when 'dirty' was intended, 'wide' instead of 'wife', 'widow' instead of 'willow', 'sender' instead of 'settler' and 'Bred' (sic) instead of 'fired'. I feel I should not have to pay for a book that is so poorly presented.

• Gorgeously written, interesting lives

  I haven’t quite finished it - for me it’s a close second to The Shipping News (personal taste) but the prose is superlative and the characters interesting. It isn’t fast paced, but it isn’t meant to be. It does get under your skin. I would recommend a print copy as reading ‘the postcards’ on Kindle is a bit tricky - not that this is a deal-breaker

• Proulx is a master of describing the world surrounding her characters.

  After finishing The Shipping News I knew I had to read another Annie Proulx book. The protagonist of this story, Loyal Blood, is quite different from Quoyle, the protagonist of The Shipping News. But both of their stories are kick started by the death of a loved one. Loyal accidentally kills his girlfriend, buries her and takes off from his family's pre-electric WWII era dairy farm in Vermont. Early in his adventure he comes upon a stack of postcards which he uses over the course of his life to write home. These postcards and others top the beginning of most of the chapters. Annie Proulx' strength is her ability to describe the world. Her descriptions of life on a dairy farm with a horrible father and husband, coal mines, and farming in North Dakota are worth the time invested in the book. She makes you feel what those environments are like and how them impact the people who live in them. I love books that have a section in them that make your heart race and makes it impossible to put down; even very good books often don't have that section. For me, the description of Loyal's life in North Dakota was that bit of reading bliss. Many characters have real word "thing" names: Loyal, Mink,Jewell. It makes me wonder if I should have read this as an allegory; in the end I didn't see it. I highly recommend this novel.

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