One of the great delights of Annie Proulx is her talent for digging
beneath the surface of an American landscape and its inhabitants
and emerging - triumphantly - with a fistful of dirty gems. However
unpromising or downright unappealing her choice of canvas might
appear to be at first glance, she always has the knack of
unearthing its social, cultural and moral riches. And never more so
with this work, in which the wasted vistas of the Texas panhandle
form the setting for a slow-building but deep-burning drama of a
community's battle to maintain the integrity of its heritage in a
swiftly globalising world. Bob Dollar, recruited as an undercover
site scout for the multi-national conglomerate Gobal Pork Rind, has
the task of targeting land-owners whose property might be suitable
for conversion into hog-farms. He takes a room in the teetotal town
of Woolbucket, where he soon finds himself more interested in
hearing stories about the town's eccentric inhabitants, past and
present, than in paving the way for money deals with its
intransigent old-timers. Bob clearly isn't cut out for the job, and
within weeks his cover is blown. But by then the dreary panhandle
landscape and its people have taken a grip on him, making his role
as champion of the globalised `pork unit' increasingly untenable.
This is crowded, fact-strewn, celebratory fiction, rich with
raucous, spot-on dialogue and unbridled humour. So peopled is it
with characters, that for a while, one almost loses sight of the
mild, well-meaning Bob Dollar. But with breath-taking craft, Proulx
brings him back, and at the same time gives every minor character a
role in the story's final blossoming, making its narrative
conclusion one of the most richly satisfying, as well as the most
optimistic, that she has ever orchestrated. Life-affirming stuff.
Liz Jensen is the author of War Crimes for the Home. (Kirkus UK)
A brilliant novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Proulx, author
of 'The Shipping News' and 'Brokeback Mountain'. 'That Old Ace in
the Hole' is a richly textured story of one man's struggle to make
good in the inhospitable ranch country of the Texas panhandle, told
with razor-sharp wit and a masterly sense of place. Some folks in
the Texas panhandle do not like hog farms. But Bob Dollar, the
newly hired hog site scout for Global Pork Rind, intends to do his
job. Bob must contend with tough men and women like ancient Freda
Beautyrooms, who controls a ranch he covets, and Ace Crouch, the
windmiller who defies the hog farms. As Bob settles in at La Von
Fronk's bunkhouse and lends a hand at Cy Frease's Old Dog Cafe, he
is forced to question everything.
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