Annie Proulx: Close Range and other stories

"The violent and the violated inhabit "Close Range", often in the same person. Proulx conveys sensibility, but she does it from the outside. Soul is exoskeleton, it works inward from the body and from the world that bruises, fractures and wears the body down to a husk....This is spendid material set out with pain and compassion but above all with a shrewdness of observation that brings the harsh upland life to us in the traditional way that stories are brought: a stanger comes to the door and tells us of a place we do not know. The comfortable America of a rising stock market and a falling awareness of whatever lives outside its concerns cannot even conceive of it. Proulx knows what she could only know not just by living in Wyoming but by the infrared that allows a very few writers clear sight into the dark of the imagination."

Dont Fence Me In
Annie Proulx's collection of stories discovers that the new West is not all that different from the wild one.
May 23rd, 1999
By Richard Eder

As we can see from the review taken by Richard Eder on the book "Close Range" by Annie Proulx, there are many interesting and controversial viewpoints surrounding the true identity of the West. In particular, there is predominantly the view of wealth and success within America, suggesting anything is possible to achieve through the "American Dream". However, stories such as Close Range represent a somewhat different reality whereby there is a continual struggle for survival with families living hand to mouth in order to earn a living and support their children. Consequently, we may argue that Annie Proulx presents a number of stories of which can be seen as a true representation of the West.