Close Range Review

Close Range by Annie Proulx (285 pages)

Date Finished: 14 October 2015
My Rating: 3.5 Stars

Synopsis:
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes comes one of the most celebrated short story collections of our time.
Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in these breathtaking tales of loneliness, quick violence, and the wrong kinds of love. Each of the stunning portraits in Close Range reveals characters fiercely wrought with precision and grace.
These are stories of desperation and unlikely elation, set in a landscape both stark and magnificent -- by an author writing at the peak of her craft.

My Review:
I enjoyed reading this, mainly from a craft perspective. I am not the biggest of fans of the Western stories, but the characters and their actions really came alive from her descriptions and I felt like I learned a lot.
While I didn't enjoy reading all of the stories, there were a few that were very interesting. As I said, the craft in all of the stories was very cool to be able to pick apart. I liked looking at the moods of each story as I read it. Each one had its own set tone that you should look out for when you read them. Even the smallest parts, like drawing out the settings, were all beautifully rendered.
I had never read "Brokeback Mountain" before and I hadn't seen the movie either, but I enjoyed the story when I read it. Even though she paints the two guys as very similar in the beginning of the story, the both end up having such different personalities at the end.
There was also a very short, two page story that was so beautifully vague. It was called "55 Miles to the Gas Pump." I loved how much characterization and care went into this very short story.
All in all, this was a cool collection of her short stories. I will most likely be picking up some of her other stories and giving them a read if not only to learn more from her craft.