Fine Just The Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

*Starred Review* The third volume of the author's celebrated and eagerly anticipated Wyoming stories (the first volume contained the now-famous novella Brokeback Mountain, upon which the honored movie was based) takes giant steps in advocating Proulx as simply one of the most inventive yet, at the same time, traditional story writers working today. Borne on smooth, effortless prose, which glides easily into glorious metaphor, her fiction can as easily transport the agreeable reader to the Wyoming of 1885 as to, in two curious, amusing stories, the Devil's lair in Hell, where he attempts to keep up with modern times (in I've Always Loved This Place, he is redecorating the underworld; in Swamp Mischief, he is fiddling with people's e-mail). But, of course, it is the American West of past and present that we most desire Proulx to bring us honest tales of gritty characters, the harsh environment, and domestic dramas set against the hard labor and small earnings of the Wyoming cowboy. This new collection will not disappoint on that front. For instance, Them Old Cowboy Songs, about the fateful homesteading ventures of young couple Archie and Rose, goes beyond poignancy to be a sheerly devastating story.  The Great Divide chronicles another young couple's struggles with the declining economy between 1920 and 1940. It's difficult to label these stories as historical fiction, for they breathe such contemporary air. They are timeless in their depicted tragedies.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2008 Booklist

Will Patten is a fine actor who fits voice and pace to the tone of each story in this collection. He is often a quiet, dreamy narrator, but when stories slowly navigate toward a terrible, heart-in-mouth tension-as Proulx's so often do-he assumes a breathiness that significantly heightens the drama. As tale-teller, Patten has a slight Western accent; this sounds right, but also enables him to use a range of dialects as appropriate for each character. In a more straightforward manner, he narrates Proulx's amusing (though less successful) tales of the Devil redesigning Hell. Proulx, best known for Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain, turns out prose as exquisite as ever in her wrenching tales of Wyoming, past and present. A Scribner hardcover (Reviews, May 26). (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

More Wyoming stories? Who could ask for anything more? (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Setting not only shapes but dwarfs the protagonists in the third collection of short stories by Proulx since her relocation to Wyoming. It would be unfair to expect any of these stories to match the provocative power of the first volume's "Brokeback Mountain" (from Close Range: Wyoming Stories, 1999), but after a decade of mining the same rugged landscape, Proulx's fiction seems to have succumbed to the law of diminishing returns. Her prose remains as prickly as ever, but some of her stories verge on folk tales and tall tales with stock figures. The nine stories here include comparative snippets featuring the Devil and his "demon secretary," suggesting modern but minor Mark Twain. Within the colloquially titled "Tits-Up in a Ditch," she conveys the passage of time in a seemingly timeless region through a male character who resists it: "For him television was never as good as radio. He found that screen images were inferior to those in his mind...After his youthful start flirting with useless ideas sown by the eastern professors, he had dedicated himself to maintaining the romantic heritage of the nineteenth-century ranch, Wyoming's golden time." Despite her own romance with the region, Proulx recognizes in "Them Old Country Songs" that the idealized past was "a time when love killed women." The state remains a tough place to live, rendered by Proulx in prose that resists sentimentality and refuses to revel in myth. Yet one senses that Wyoming has played itself out for the author, at least as an inspiration for her fiction. If she has another novel in her as ambitious as The Shipping News (1992), which employed a very different setting as practically a protagonist, she may need to seek inspiration elsewhere. Maybe a third of these nine stories rank with her best; the slightest seem like filler. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* The third volume of the author's celebrated and eagerly anticipated Wyoming stories (the first volume contained the now-famous novella Brokeback Mountain, upon which the honored movie was based) takes giant steps in advocating Proulx as simply one of the most inventive yet, at the same time, traditional story writers working today. Borne on smooth, effortless prose, which glides easily into glorious metaphor, her fiction can as easily transport the agreeable reader to the Wyoming of 1885 as to, in two curious, amusing stories, the Devil's lair in Hell, where he attempts to keep up with modern times (in "I've Always Loved This Place," he is redecorating the underworld; in "Swamp Mischief," he is fiddling with people's e-mail). But, of course, it is the American West of past and present that we most desire Proulx to bring us honest tales of—gritty characters, the harsh environment, and domestic dramas set against the hard labor and small earnings of the Wyoming cowboy. This new collection will not disappoint on that front. For instance, "Them Old Cowboy Songs," about the fateful homesteading ventures of young couple Archie and Rose, goes beyond poignancy to be a sheerly devastating story. "The Great Divide" chronicles another young couple's struggles with the declining economy between 1920 and 1940. It's difficult to label these stories as historical fiction, for they breathe such contemporary air. They are timeless in their depicted tragedies. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

More Wyoming stories? Who could ask for anything more? Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Substituting "fabulous" for "fine" tells you everything you need to know about Proulx's third volume in her "Wyoming Stories" series. As her other work (e.g., The Shipping News ), the star of this collection is the American West, whose geography and terrain both define and limit the characters who inhabit it while underlining their relative impermanence. Readers will find themselves drawn to the intricate, relentless terrain that dominates "Them Old Cowboy Songs" and "Testimony of the Donkey," while those hankering for a touch of the macabre will chuckle gleefully over the devil's deeds in "I've Always Loved This Place" and "Swamp Mischief." What elevates this collection from merely good to sublime, however, is "The Sagebrush Kid," a masterpiece of understated horror that elevates the time-honored humanity vs. nature theme to a whole new level. Prepare to be surprised, disturbed, and uncomfortably amused by Proulx's attention to detail and her unflinching descriptions of life's inherent cruelties. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/08.]—Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh

The steely Proulx (The Shipping News , etc.) returns with another astonishing series of hardscrabble lives lived in the sparse, inhospitable West, where one mistake can put you on a long-winding trail to disaster. "Family Man" is set in the Mellowhorn Home for old cowboys and aging ranch widows, where resident curmudgeon Ray Forkenbrock shares memories of his father with his granddaughter and an eavesdropping caretaker; the secret he reveals gives new meaning to the word "relative." In two demonically clever riffs on human weakness, "I've Always Loved This Place" and "Swamp Mischief," the Devil, accompanied by his secretary, Duane Fork, must entertain himself thinking up new ways to bother the living and the dead, as temptation is no longer a necessary evil. Saving the best for last, "Tits-up in a Ditch" breaks new literary ground with the gut-wrenching tale of an Iraq veteran who returns to her family raw with grief. Pioneer homesteaders facing drought and debt give way to modern-day hippies trying to lose themselves in the vanishing wilderness and real estate developers out to make a buck—unforgettable characters in nine stories that range in tone from crude cowboy humor to heartbreaking American tragedy. (Sept.)