Tab Article

Ratings: ★★★★☆ (4.3/5)
Genre: Literary Fiction, Satire, Western, Contemporary Fiction

Book Review:
Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ''The Shipping News,'' returns with ''That Old Ace in the Hole,'' a novel that combines her signature strengths—vivid evocation of place, deep sympathy for quirky characters, and sharp social commentary—into a story that is by turns hilarious, poignant, and disturbing.

The novel follows Bob Dollar, a young man adrift in life. Abandoned by his parents as a child, raised by an uncle who runs a seedy motel, Bob has ended up in Denver, working for a corporation called Global Pork Rind. His job: to travel to the Texas panhandle and scout locations for industrial hog farms. He's not to reveal his true purpose; he's to pose as someone looking for land to build, say, a retirement home.

Bob arrives in the town of Woolybucket, a place that seems stuck in time. The locals are fiercely independent, suspicious of outsiders, and deeply opposed to hog farms. They've seen what industrial farming does to the land, the water, the way of life. Bob, with his corporate mission and his vague cover story, is immediately an object of suspicion.

But Bob is also a sympathetic figure—naive, lonely, eager to please. As he gets to know the locals, he begins to question his mission. He meets Freda Beautyrrooms, an ancient woman who controls a vast ranch and has a history stretching back to the frontier days. He meets Ace Crouch, a windmiller who has made it his life's work to fight the hog farms. He meets a cast of characters that includes a former rodeo star, a woman who runs a bed-and-breakfast for wayward travelers, and a variety of eccentrics who make Woolybucket their home.

Proulx's prose is as vivid as ever. She captures the landscape of the panhandle—the wind, the flatness, the endless sky—with a poet's eye. She captures the voices of her characters—their drawls, their idioms, their stories—with a journalist's ear. The novel is dense with detail, but never feels slow; every description serves the story.

The critical response has been strong. A.N. Wilson in the Daily Telegraph calls it ''an absolute corker of a novel which manages the dual feat of being a serious satire on the evils of global capitalism, and a personal comedy of Dickensian dimensions.'' The Guardian praises ''Proulx's own ace in the hole... her brilliance at evoking place and landscape with almost immeasurable skill.'' The Independent on Sunday finds it ''amusing, intriguing and disturbing.''

''That Old Ace in the Hole'' is a novel about many things: the destruction of rural communities by corporate interests, the resilience of those who refuse to give up, the search for home and belonging. But mostly it's a novel about people—flawed, funny, stubborn, and deeply human. Bob Dollar is one of Proulx's most appealing creations, and his journey from corporate drone to something like a real person is a pleasure to witness.

For fans of Proulx, this is essential reading. For newcomers, it's a wonderful introduction to one of America's finest writers. Highly recommended.