The "ABCs of BBM": Round 965! (Rules in first post)

[Fran]

They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat up on the Montana border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage, near the Utah line, both high school dropout country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life.  Ennis, reared by his older brother and sister after their parents drove off the only curve on Dead Horse Road leaving them twenty-four dollars in cash and a two-mortgage ranch, applied at age fourteen for a hardship license that let him make the hour-long trip from the ranch to the high school.  The pickup was old, no heater, one windshield wiper and bad tires; when the transmission went there was no money to fix it.  He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction, but the truck broke down short of it, pitching him directly into ranch work.

[story]

=aside= Meryl
Welcome back and thanks for noticing.

[Ellemeno]

Ennis told Jack he had the girls that weekend, all the while unacknowledging Jack's real purpose for visiting.


=aside= Meryl
Welcome back, Roomie!

[Toast]

June 23, 1994

It was near 7 P.M. The first dinner guest, Tom Watkin, a former newspaper reporter and one of Ms. Proulx's fishing buddies, appeared bearing a homemade flan. The day the Pulitzer Prizes were announced, Mr. Watkin stood under Ms. Proulx's window, serenading her on his accordion with the "Jesus Loves Me Polka."

Next was Corinne Gaudin, a historian of Russia, and her brother, Laurent Gaudin, a ski-lift builder, who had not been eaten by sharks in Reunion.

The interview was over, and dinner was ready. She served the rabbit with a big salad, broccoli and French bread. With the room lighted by candles, "Haunted Heart" played again. Ms. Proulx poured wild raspberry vodka she had made.

She and her friends talked until midnight of places they had been, of Reunion, Iran, Paris and Newfoundland. Ms. Proulx mentioned that her house was for sale. She is ready to move on, somewhere farther north. Somewhere, she said, in Vermont.

At Home With: E. Annie Proulx; At Midlife, a Novelist Is Born

=aside= Players
I absolutely love this article where Annie Proulx and her international fishing buddies get together.
"I'm desperate to write. I'm crazy to write. I want to write."
Annie Proulx, the verbalist.

[southendmd]

Proulx's prose wends its way, tickling our funny bones and touching our hearts.

=aside= Meryl
Welcome back, Priestess, and Navigatrix Extraordinaire!

[memento]

Proulx's prose is rich in detail, but with her concise and direct writing style, is never xtraneously wordy.

[memento]

Round 550!!
Annie's prose is oh so nifty!!

[Toast]

First Person: Marcus Hu on "Brokeback Mountain"

In 1997 when I read Annie Proulx's short story, "Brokeback Mountain" in the New Yorker, I sat in bed stunned. I had never read such an intensely literate love story that packed such an emotional punch. I re-read the piece at least three times in a row and couldn't believe the New Yorker had the courage to publish such an honest tale of two men who accidentally fall in love.
.......
I really have to applaud Focus Features for having the courage to take such a gamble on this movie. Even for a specialty division of a studio to get behind such a daring film, it defines them as an organization that understands the term, "independent spirit." If the film succeeds commercially, it will hopefully raise the bar for gay cinema and prove that there is an audience to support it. If anything, the film has already garnered some of the highest praise from critics as well as having won the top prize in Venice to validate it.
.....

Link

[Fran]

An excerpt from a reader's review of Close Range:  Wyoming Stories at Amazon.com:

"Proulx will break your heart with that last story -- but the rest of the collection is powerful, too.  If you haven't read Proulx, pick this one up.  It's rough, raw, brutally honest storytelling."

[Meryl]

Annie Proulx clearly believes in clarity when it comes to prose:  short, concise and evocative descriptions abound in her works.

=aside=Players
Thanks for the nice welcomes.  Great to be back. 

[memento]

An excerpt from an Associated Press telephone interview with Annie Proulx .

Proulx: It's not why I write. I had no idea I was going to get any response of this sort. I wrote it from my long-term stance of trying to describe sections of rural life, individuals in particular rural situations and places, well, first the places. That it came out this way—it just happened to touch certain nerves in people. I think this country is hungry for this story.

AP: Why?

Proulx: Because it's a love story and there's hardly much love around these days. I think people are sick of divisiveness, hate-mongering, disasters, war, loss; and need and want a reminder that sometimes love comes along that is strong and permanent, and that it can happen to anyone.