Product Description

Annie Proulx's first novel, which received huge acclaim and marked the launch of an outstanding literary career. 'Postcards' is the story of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime on the run from a crime so terrible that it renders him forever incapable of touching a woman. The odyssey begins on a freezing Vermont hillside in 1944 and propels Blood across the American West for forty years. Denied love and unable to settle, he lives a hundred different lives: mining gold, growing beans, hunting fossils, trapping, prospecting for uranium and ranching. His only contact with his past is through a series of postcards he sends home -- not realising that in his absence disaster has befallen his family, and their deep-rooted connection with the land has been severed with devastating consequences!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98150 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Proulx has come close to writing "the great American novel".' New York Times 'The richness of America is portrayed with memorable effect in this remarkable first novel -- Faulkner springs to mind. "Postcards" is written from the heart and -- for its raspy dialogue, laconic humour and beautiful description of the natural world -- deserves to be widely read.' Independent on Sunday 'A sweeping and dramatic tale. Not since Steinbeck has the migrant worker's life been so evocatively rendered.' Daily Telegraph 'A remarkable novel; poetic and yet driven by a strong narrative, tragic and yet scored with deep veins of humour. Loyal Blood is one of those rare, haunted characters who continue to live in the mind after you finish the book.' Literary Review

About the Author
Annie Proulx published her first novel 'Postcards' in 1991 at the age of 56. 'The Shipping News' won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Award and the Irish Times International Prize. Her third novel, 'Accordion Crimes', was published in 1996. She is also the author of three short-story collections, 'Heart Songs' (1994), 'Close Range' (1999) and 'Bad Dirt' (2004). 'Brokeback Mountain' was made into an Oscar-winning film in 2005. 'Fine Just the Way It Is', her third collection of Wyoming short stories, was published in 2008.

Customer Reviews

A glorious read.
"Postcards" is a darker work than Proulx's better known "The Shipping News" but all the hallmarks are there. The descriptions of nature are breathtaking, the dialogue acute, the control consummate. The author unerringly chooses the right phrase, or positions the right word just so. This is the work of a master water-colourist in prose. Without giving too much away, it is the story of two lost lives. The first occurs on page one but it is the chronicle of the second that forms the rest of the book, poor damaged Loyal sending back his postcards - loyal by nature as well as by name. While brother Dub gets rich and fat in real estate, Loyal battles against everything the elements can throw at him - rockfall, fire, snow - then picks himself up, tries again. The passing of the years and the changing of the times are beautifully and poignantly laid out, and I have to say that so unbearable did I find it at times that I could only manage to read some parts of the novel in short bursts. I haven't been so moved by a book in years as I have been by the story of Loyal Blood. Six stars out of five.

This book just stays with me
About three years ago, I stumbled across Postcards in an airport bookstore, and I couldn't put it down for the 3 days that I was away from home. It is the only book I have ever read by Proulx, but the images from Postcards seem to be etched in my mind. Think of a favorite movie- and the scene or image that will never go away. That's what this book offers: vivid, emotional images. It's a book that I have always wanted to recommend to someone, the kind of book that makes me wish I was reading it for a literature class so that I could talk about it with others, analyze it, and truly appreciate it. It is a beautifully written, heart-wrenching story. As I recall, an observation I had while reading Postcards was that Proulx was noticably sympathetic to her female characters - they seemed to be victims of circumstance - while her male characters were often the cause of their own undoing. This realization actually enhanced my enjoyment of the book, by making me conscious of the author and allowing a certain amount of disconnect from the characters- necessary to keep from getting too emotionally connected to these tragic characters.

good, but not worthy from this author
A good book, really a very good book, but still a little disappointing from this author. Another fairly grimy down-to-earth account of Americans' inhumanity to Americans, but the book is more like Accordian Crimes in the respect that it lacks a totally punchy central plot and is more a set of interesting cameos. Not my taste, but certainly worth reading. Quite interesting bits about fossils! However I'm still looking out for another book as good as The Shipping News!