The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 7 January 1999
by E. Annie Proulx
After winning the Pulitzer and National Book Award for The Shipping News, Proulx has gone on to create a very different and deeply compelling novel. This book follows the "life" of a handcrafted accordion, from the hands of its creator through a century of the American immigrant experience. The reader doesn't have to love the accordion to find this book enriching. In fact, not very many of the book's main characters even play the instrument. What the reader does encounter, however, are several short tales of families who live on the edge of American society, still holding on to the values from the countries from which they originate, and finding their way in this country. There is a dark, often tragic, tone to the book, and some of the stories are more engrossing than others, but it is difficult to put down. Proulx's language is rich and full of the lives she depicts; people from Sicily, Poland, Mexico, Germany, France and even the Basque shepherds living in the wild west.
Also by E. Annie Proulx: [Postcards]