Postcards

Postcards by Annie Proulx


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A hard book--not difficult to read, but the characters are hardened, their lives unforgiving, the land stark and mean. Bones jut up out of the soil and rock of this book, suddenly exposed and horrifying.

Proulx contrasts well against Kingsolver, who is all life, growth and healing, while in this book Proulx draws the living dead. Farmers who have lost everything, including limbs. A young man driven from home by guilt that wracks his entire life. Forty years of wandering the West without love or friendship or rest for the weary.

I don't mean to make this book sound horrific; it's a good story. She's an amazing writer. The flow of narrative is original, unpredictable and compelling.

Most of the chapters begin with an image of a postcard, hand-written and addressed, sent from one character to another. The magic of the postcards, and of the chapters themselves, is that we as readers often don't know who these characters are or what their situation is when we begin reading.

In this way, the beginning of each chapter is almost like the beginning of a book. We have to keep reading in order to find out what's going on, who these people are. Proulx keeps us delving, hunting through her landscapes like Loyal with his coyote traps, noting each twig and blade of grass.

We have to trust her to give us the story. She doesn't always give it, either. Some things we will never know. But this is a satisfying book in the end. It has a flavor all of its own.

It tastes of cracked leather, sagebrush, smoke, windblown dust, old bacon grease and motor oil.

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