Ace Low
I recall reading some time back that Annie Proulx had decided to quit novel-writing in favor of short stories. The first Proulx novel I read was The Shipping News, which was wonderful (if a terrible movie), and while Accordion Crimes didn’t live down to the reviews, it didn’t live up to the expectations its predecessor set. Postcards was good, but no more. That Old Ace in the Hole, Proulx’s last (or latest) novel turned up in a second hand bookstore clearance sale, where I picked up a nice hardback edition for about five dollars, and it falls someplace in between the others. It’s not as good as Shipping News, but sometimes rises to that level, sparkling in particular when some of the locals get to telling stories to Bob Dollar, the rather ill-defined central character, whose main purpose seems to be to record impressions and listen to other peoples tales of the past. Minor characters pop up, sometimes with entire chapters devoted to them, for no purpose whatsoever, leaving the impression that the reason Proulx has abandoned novels for short stories is because her novels have become a string of stories she struggles to connect with somewhat less-than-deathless prose. While I have no objection to indeterminate endings, this novel’s conclusion seems to wind itself up against everything that’s gone before it, if largely because the protagonist is such a nonentity. Even the denouement is perplexing, a rationale for the book’s title more than anything else. Clearly Proulx loves the old stories, loves the lost people and cultures and land, and if nothing else Ace establishes that love and does a fair job at making a record where one might not otherwise have existed of the sounds and sights of a part of the America that is smothered in corporate agriculture, losing its character to the facelessness of modern, urban society. Proulx has an ear for dialect and dialog and an eye for telling details and sweeping vistas alike, but as good as the writing often is that’s not enough in the end. Maybe her stories are better. I’ll have to try those next.