[.ca] That Old Ace in the Hole (ISBN 0743524985)

From Amazon.com:
Bob Dollar is a reluctant land swindler. When the 25-year-old protagonist in Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole signs on as a location scout for Global Pork Rind, an industrial hog farming corporation, he has no idea what kind of moral quandaries he's in for. Well, maybe he does. His assignment, after all, is to infiltrate a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle and find a tract of land his employer can turn into an industrial hog farm. Bob tells the locals he's scouting for luxury home developers ("They feel there is potential here"), but as a cover story it's less than clever. Only a fool would build mansions in the godforsaken Panhandle country, a place of light soil, bad wind, killing drought, and end-of-world thunder. "To live here," one Panhandler tells Bob, "it sure helps if you are half cow and half mesquite and all crazy." The narrative follows Bob's hapless quest to ink a deal, but Proulx's mission is bigger than that. She's out to tell the story of the Panhandle itself, to write an entirely new literary territory into existence. With the help of a menagerie of eccentric characters set down in "the most complicated part of North America," Proulx succeeds admirably. --Claire Dederer

Just like the real thing:
My step mom is from the panhandle in Texas, and I grew up travelling across that God-forsaken country from Southern California and back again; experiencing grit-filled wind storms, freak snow, termites that brought the house down, pigeon shoots off the back of a tractor hoe, cotton bale jumping, learning how to drive on some ol' Texan back road into and out of ditches, Elvis Xmas songs, the best damned biscuits and gravy you EVER had, and more relatives with names like Proulx invented for this novel than you'd care to believe. This book brought it all back to me, fresh and oil stained to its' very roots. The characters are wonderfully kooky (and thus in my mind's eye, very realistic- you just can't make people up like the ones who live in Texas!), and the story unfolds as only a true Proulx does: it meanders and crosses over story line to story line, until at the very end, you are happy to leave these folks to their fictional lives, knowing they'll be just fine, ma'am... Thanks again for some more fine reading, and for capturing so well the true Panhandle sprit. I look forward to whatever comes next!

happy ending:
proulx writes of believable people, events, and quandries. after reading "open range" with some sad stories of life hitting hard i was happy to pick up the beautiful prose in a happy story. the ending leaves me wishing it was non-fiction and that i could pick up something that would enable me to move to the texas panhandle (and i don't like texas). although this novel does remain true to showing that people aren't perfect, it definately leaves me with a positive feeling about people rather than some of her previous more sorrowful works.

Rather Intolerable:
I tend to regard myself as an appreciative and patient reader, but there are times I'm simply compelled to share my thoughts on a bad read. This is nothing like the "Shipping News", which I rather enjoyed after a second read. In contrast, "That Old Ace in the Hole" is a beat-around-the-bush tale that digresses from one pointless sub-story to another. There are so many characters in the book that do not establish any permanent connection with the reader -- even Bob Dollar, the protagonist, appears only once every few chapters and mutters a few words, period. In addition, the story is *slow*. You'll need to plough through more than 80 pages before the story starts to pick up. In essence, Bob's a fresh grad working for an evil conglomerate looking to con good ole folks from their land but in between, we get Sherriff So-and-So, the Pioneer Fronk and a slew of idiosyncratic characters -- all happily grating on your frayed nerves. Was Annie trying to paint a rich history of the Texas panhandle? I can only speculate. The sad fact is that all these "noises" are distracting (to say the least) and work against the fluidity of the book. I would've perservered to the end, but with so many other good books out there, leaving this one on the shelf wasn't the hardest thing to do.

Delicious:
Having read all of Proulx' work, I was thrilled by this book and can't wait for the next one. I am a jazz musician and Proulx is one of the few writers I have ever read whose prose is like music to me. It is so artfully crafted and so original. It reminds me of a great solo. Her slowly building, but ever tightening story of a hapless advance man for a company trying to site hog factories keeps you keenly interested in the fabulously mundane lives she illuminates. The final scene brings a tapestry of the region together in a way that only Proulx can -- a climax of imagery and emotion that left me out of breath and fully satisfied.

A rich, engrossing novel:
With this novel, Annie Proulx solidifies herself as one of America's greatest living literary treasures. This, I assure you, is not hyperbole. Ms. Proulx has an uncanny gift for twisting and shaping language into poetic prose that's as sharp and pointed as the barbed-wire fences she pays homage to in this remarkably satisfying novel. Some reviewers have complained of Ms. Proulx creating unnecessary confusion by introducing too many characters with too many quirks. I disagree: Ms. Proulx's characters are well realized and instantly memorable. Their lives interconect in a plausible, natural progression; nothing here feels forced. In fact, I would compare Ms. Proulx's densely populated novels to those of William Faulkner, another gifted author who eschewed perpetrating stereotypes in favor of creating rich, absorbing characters devoid of affectation. Her style of writing, however, is pure Hemmingway - direct, masculine, and concise. There are a few miscues here - hence the 4-star rating - but overall "That Old Ace in the Hole" is an intoxicating read that rewards patient readers looking for an entertaining yet thought-provoking story. A true gem.