 | |
| Author | Annie Proulx |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short story collection |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 2004 |
| Publication place | United States |
| ISBN | 978-0-7432-5799-2 |
| Preceded by | Close Range: Wyoming Stories |
| Followed by | Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 |
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 is a collection of short stories by Annie Proulx published in 2004. [1] It was not as well received by critics in comparison with Proulx's 1999 Close Range: Wyoming Stories . [2]
The collection consists of eleven stories, all set in Wyoming; Proulx moved to the state in the 1990s. [1] Five of the eleven stories are set in the fictional Wyoming town of "Elk Tooth", [2] a town of 80 inhabitants in which each individual "tries to be a character and with some success. There is little more to it than being broke, proud, ingenious and setting your heels against civilized society's pull". [3] A number of the stories had previously been published in The New Yorker . [4] "The Wamsutter Wolf" appeared in The Paris Review a few months before the collection was published. [5]
Creel Zmundzinski, [6] a Wyoming Fish and Game warden, finds that a small patch in a roadside parking area will incinerate hunters without the correct licenses. [7] In Pee-Wee, one of Elk Tooth's three bars, his best friend Plato Bucklew commends Zmundzinski for sending wrongdoers literally to Hell. [8]
An extended exposition about a family of small town Wyoming lawyers and polo players leads up to a narrative about a Native American woman who is employed to clear out the family's decaying office building. [9]
The widow of the last lawyer marries Charlie Parrott, who is of Oglala Sioux descent. [10] Parrott's daughter Linny is accepted by his new wife on the proviso that Linny clean through the lawyer family's archives and categorize what may be of value. [11] Amongst the detritus she finds reels of the 1913 Essanay Studios film The Indian Wars Refought produced by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody. [6] Linny is prompted to discover her hidden heritage: she reads Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee , and asks her father to take her back to the reservation he was born in. [10] He declines: "She would get involved, and after a few years of passionate activism she might fall away from it and end up on urban sidewalks in the company of street chiefs and hookers". [11]
Elk Tooth resident and drinker at Elk Tooth's three bars (according to the book, "the Wyoming trickle down effect" [12] ) Deb Sipple agrees to haul hay from Wisconsin to the drought-stricken [6] ranch of "lady rancher" Fiesta Punch. [13] Sipple tosses cigarette butts out the window of his flat-bed truck, igniting the hay and resulting in "the closest thing to a meteor ever seen in Elk Tooth... his truck a great fiery cylinder hurtling through the darkness". [4]
Rancher Gilbert Wolfscale tries and fails to adapt to modern realities. His wife leaves him and his children have no interest in him or his farm. [9] Despite what has been described as a "hokey title", [14] it was critically received as one of the stronger stories in the collection. [2] [9]
In what has been described as a "weird tale", three talking badgers gossip amongst themselves. [6] One of them – an untenured Creative Writing professor [8] – is convinced that a rancher's wife has fallen in love with him. [1] When the rancher shoots at him, he fancies this is out of jealousy; "but then, he'd been denied tenure and was a little sour on things". [15]
Mitchell and Eugenie Fair are newcomers to Wyoming. [1] Though both are initially attracted to life there for their own separate reasons, they grow apart rather than together in the new environment. [7] The "man crawling out of trees" of the title is a skier with a broken leg who Eugenie Fair takes for a prowler instead of giving him aid, breaking a "cardinal rule" of the place. [16]
The men of Elk Tooth pass the long winter with a beard-growing contest. [9] One contestant resorts to applying Viagra to encourage his beard. [8]
Greybull-born Buddy Millar [17] dislikes highways, preferring back roads, some the "serious bad dirt" of the title of the collection. [18] Millar finds himself back in Wyoming, in Wamsutter, more a huge trailer park off the I-80 than a town. [18]
The stories set in Elk Tooth were variously described as "mere squibs" [9] and "genuinely terrible". [2] Character names in the short story collection, "quirky characters with names to match", [13] include Orion Horncrackle, [19] Creel Zmundzinski and Plato Bucklew from "The Hellhole", Deb Sipple and Fiesta Punch from "The Trickle Down Effect". The A.V. Club review of Bad Dirt described them as a "helpful guide through this uneven collection... The wackier they are, the more disposable the story." [6]
"The Wamsutter Wolf" was awarded the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction. [20] [21] In an interview with The Paris Review in 2009, Proulx stated that she preferred her short fictions to her novels. [21]
The Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River and the Wyoming Range War, was a range conflict that took place in Johnson County, Wyoming from 1889 to 1893. The conflict began when cattle companies started ruthlessly persecuting alleged rustlers in the area, many of whom were settlers who competed with them for livestock, land and water rights. As violence swelled between the large established ranchers and the smaller settlers in the state, it culminated in the Powder River Country, when the ranchers hired gunmen, who invaded the county. The gunmen's initial incursion in the territory alerted the small farmers and ranchers, as well as the state lawmen, and they formed a posse of 200 men that led to a grueling standoff which ended when the United States Cavalry on the orders of President Benjamin Harrison relieved the two forces, although further fighting persisted.
Thomas Coraghessan Boyle is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published nineteen novels and more than 150 short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988, for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York.
Larry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations. He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
Edna Ann Proulx is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. She has written most frequently as Annie Proulx but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.
The Shipping News is a novel by American author E. Annie Proulx and published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1993. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the U.S. National Book Award, as well as other awards. It was adapted as a film of the same name which was released in 2001.
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories is a semi-autobiographical collection of three stories by American author Norman Maclean (1902–1990) published in 1976. It was the first work of fiction published by the University of Chicago Press.
Emery is an American post-hardcore band formed in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 2001 by Toby Morrell, Devin Shelton, Matt Carter, Josh Head, Joel Green, and Seth Studley. The band relocated to Seattle in order to reach a more music-centered scene.
A man-eating plant is a legendary carnivorous plant large enough to kill and consume a human or other large animal. Various such myths and fictional tales exist around the world.
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams. Its plot depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.
Close Range: Wyoming Stories is a 1999 collection of short stories by Annie Proulx, beginning in 1997. The stories are set in the desolate landscape of rural Wyoming and detail the often grim lives of the protagonists.
"Brokeback Mountain" is a short story by American author Annie Proulx. It was originally published in The New Yorker on October 13, 1997, for which it won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1998. Proulx won a third place O. Henry Award for the story in 1998. A slightly expanded version of the story was published in Proulx's 1999 collection of short stories, Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The collection was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The Aga Khan Prize for Fiction was awarded by the editors of The Paris Review for what they deem to be the best short story published in the magazine in a given year. The last prize was given in 2004. No applications were accepted. The winner got $1,000. The prize was established by Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah Aga Khan III, and was first awarded in 1956.
The Red Desert is a high-altitude desert and sagebrush steppe located in the south-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, comprising approximately 9,320 square miles. Among the natural features in the Red Desert region are the Great Divide Basin, a unique endorheic drainage basin formed by a division in the Continental Divide, and the Killpecker Sand Dunes, the largest living dune system in the United States. In the 19th century, the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass, just north of the Red Desert. Today, busy Interstate 80 bisects the desert's southern region while gas field roads cross the desert.
The Miller Cabin complex consists of three buildings that were the residence of Robert A. Miller, the first superintendent of Teton National Monument. A house, a barn and a cabin built by the U.S. Forest Service are included. The property was eventually transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in what became the National Elk Refuge. The buildings are a component of the closely related Grace and Robert Miller Ranch.
Auguste Corteau is the pen name of the Greek author Petros Hadjopoulos.
Rex Floyd Rammell is an American veterinarian and perennial candidate for public office in Idaho and Wyoming.
Fine Just the Way It Is is a 2008 collection of short stories by Annie Proulx.
"Job History" is part of a short story series, Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx. It takes place in the writer's hometown of Cora, Wyoming. The story follows the life of the main character, Leeland Lee, and his unsuccessful attempts to find employment. Radio news reports throughout the story relate to Leeland's struggles and disappointment. His lack of education and the unavailability of jobs in his hometown cause him to move often. His determination is commendable, but in the end his efforts are futile and he lives his life in discontent.
Barkskins is a 2016 novel by American writer Annie Proulx. It tells the story of two immigrants to New France, René Sel and Charles Duquet, and of their descendants. It spans over 300 years and witnesses the deforestation of the New World from the arrival of Europeans into the contemporary era of global warming.
The Power of the Dog is a 1967 novel of Western fiction written by American author Thomas Savage.