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...first chapters and a functioning human male at the end, simply because the author has decreed a character transplant. But Proulx's language does not admit "yes, but" or "really?" When it works, which is most of the time, it sweeps aside all ideas, her own and the reader's, and allows no response except banging the hands together. Without this mad blaze of confidence, her next novel might have been a hanky dampener. Accordion Crimes traces an old green accordion from hand to calloused hand among turn-of-the-century Italian and German immigrants in New Orleans...
...here's the sound of Close Range: Wyoming Stories (Scribner; 285 pages; $25), her new collection of short stories: "Pake knew a hundred dirt road shortcuts, steering them through scabland and slope country, in and out of the tiger shits..." (the reader fumbles this one but is swept on) "... over the tawny plain still grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts, into early darkness and the first storm laying down black ice, hard orange dawn, the world smoking, snaking dust devils on bare dirt, heat boiling out of the sun until the paint on the truck hood curled, ragged webs...
...author too appreciatively tasting her own words. "Spooled-out year" and "kicked down" suggest a man who tossed his mental baggage together in a hurry, and "strange ground" says something of where he is going. As always, when signs are this clear that an author knows her trade, the reader signs on for the journey...
...bedtime read. However, if you are hardened enough to read through the gore and carnage, you will become mesmerized by the ferocious prose. Teran writes without inhibitions and without softening his subject matter, and while his style is harsh, the force behind it will capture even the most reluctant reader...
...going on, I should note that the soundtrack apparently has huge spoilers in the track listing; that is, the titles of the tracks give away key parts of the plot. I say apparently because I have avoided them assiduously, and listing them here would only, of course, tempt the reader to spoil it for him/herself as well. So while I will discuss the few pieces that won't give anything away (such as "Anakin's Theme"), you'll have to buy the soundtrack (or glance at the back in Newbury Comics) to find out what the rest...