I recently picked up Annie Proulx's latest collection of short stories, FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS. I'm two stories in, having read "Them Old Cowboy Songs" -- which appeared previously in The New Yorker, and which my friend Lynn sent along a few months ago, knowing how much I love the historical American West, with its blood-filled rough and tumble -- and "The Great Divide."
The inside flap says "Proulx's characters try to climb out of poverty and desperation but get cut down as if the land itself wanted their blood," which it does, of course, and which it succeeds in claiming.
I've just started the third story (I'm reading out of order), which features Duane Fork, "the Devil's demon secretary." I suspect this story won't end well either, which is its juicy appeal.
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