Customer Reviews

Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I greatly enjoyed Proulx' Close Range collection of short stories,
and Bad Dirt (subtitled "Wyoming Stories 2") is a very worthy
encore. The Close Range stories gave a wonderful flavor to the
rural areas of the state, the people, the land, the warm and the
rough sides, both past and present. Some of the stories were
humorous, others were harrowing, some were a whimsical mix. You'll
find just the same mix (and a bit more) in Bad Dirt. You start off
with a 12-page story about Game & Fish Warden Creel Zmundzinski (who
turns up again in a couple of more stories) that begins in a nice
straightforward fashion, and then takes off into a kind of
humorous Proulx-Stephen King joint venture (or perhaps
Proulx-King-Carl Hiaassen).

Several stories center on the residents and the 3 bars in the tiny
town of Elk City: I very much like reading another of Proulx'
short stories when I feel that I already know the characters well
(one of these is a kind of Proulx-Hiaassen mix involving rental
alligators--it sounds bizarre, but the story works in a truly
delightful way).

The best of the stories is The Wamsutter Wolf, and runs about 35
pages. Buddy Millar lives in a $40/month rental housetrailer
5 miles out from the center of a small boomtown (almost all
trailers). You don't get much for your $40 a month. His only
neighbors live close by in an even grungier trailer--a bully who
beat him up in high school, his wife and passel of grungy young
kids, one of whom is a 4-year-old alcoholic (his father believes
that learning to drink young avoids the problems that come with
learning later). This is a horrifying and harrowing story--
stronger than anything I remember in Close Range. It's very
tough, utterly realistic, and it left me wanting to see it
expanded to about 300 pages as a novel.

Annie Proulx and William Gay (I Hate To See The Evening Sun Go
Down) are the two best short-story writers I've read in many
years--and both write excellent novels as well.

Didn't like it as much as At Close Range. The stories seems less inspired, a little more flippant, a little less likely to grab you, shake you, scratch you, bite you, gouge you than the former collection. Still very well written, and more engaging that most stuff I pick up on a whim or obtain on recommendation from friends or family. Oh - I'm a Wyoming native, I live on the family ranch outside Saratoga (look it up on a map!), and trust me, the other reviews from us 'Pokes are right - these stories (and At Close Range) actually are pretty durn close to Wyoming then and now (especially the geography and landscapes, the climate, the damn WIND, and the very necessary self-reliance of most folks), although I'd have to say your average WY native is maybe just a little bit less colorful and probably a little bit more of a warm, caring, educated person (though we have more than our share of Proulx characters).

This volume of stories about Wyoming contains four fully developed, character-driven short stories interspersed with what feels like seven thinly disguised local anecdotes. Yet in both kinds of stories Proulx demonstrates a Faulkner-like skill at portraying agrarian locals coming head-to-head with modernity. The final (anecdotal) story, "Florida Rental", especially reminded me of Faulkner's "Spotted Horses" sequence from The Snopes Trilogy. And like Faulkner, Proulx seems to have an underlying affection (or at least respect) for all her characters, even the ones she seems to enjoy skewering.

The substantial stories that I enjoyed are: "The Indian Wars Refaught" about a troubled young Sioux woman who reconnects with her sense of identity while sorting archival material related to the battle of Wounded Knee; "What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?," about one Wyoming rancher's decline in the face of changing times, a failed marriage, and sons who've gone their own ways; "Man Crawling Out of Trees" about an elderly couple who moved to Wyoming from the East and how each of them responds in radically different ways to the rugged terrain, taciturn populace, and sense of isolation; "The Wamsutter Wolf" in which the human characters are eerily shown to behave according to wolf pack mores. Of all the stories, these four come closest to matching the standard Proulx set for herself with "Brokeback Mountain." Also worth mentioning here is "Dump Junk," a story that interestingly moves beyond Proulx's very grounded sense of reality into the realm of fantasy.

All in all, this is a pretty satisfying collection of stories.

I've read Annie Proulx's earlier collection of Wyoming Stories (Close Range -- see my review of it if you'd like) and found this collection equally masterfully written. Even as I get absorbed in each story, I can stand back and just admire the skill of using words to paint pictures of people and places. Amazing!

These stories struck me as being more cheeky than the Close Range stories -- not quite as poignant, but more toward the funny side. But the tall-tale, mythical quality is still there, as is the spot-on description of the dusty, harsh, and utterly beautiful star of the book -- Wyoming -- and the dusty, harsh, and utterly beautiful people who dare to call it home. We meet all kinds: crusty ranchers, ex-urbanites, oil and gas workers, mountain men, wildlife agents. Their lives intertwine within and between stories until the whole collection becomes one larger-than-life whole. I got this book from the library, but liked it so much that it might be one that I'll actually add to my collection. I can't recommend it highly enough -- go get it today!

Annie Proulx tickles me. I loved "Shipping News" for its mix of quirky characters, dark humor, sentiment, sheer scariness, and the impact of an isolated and starkly beautiful landscape. Much of this shows up again in her short stories set in Wyoming, where isolation and economic contingencies tend to get a strangle hold on the people who live there. The tough survive OK, but only by fierce determination and good luck, of which there is scarcely enough to go around.

The stories range from brief comic interludes, existing sometimes chiefly for the sake of a punch line ("The Old Badger Game" and "Summer of the Hot Tubs"), to humorous yarns about colorful local characters ("The Trickle Down Effect"), to longer accounts of people up against unwelcome circumstances with every potential of crushing them. The marriage of a retired New York couple in a massive log house on a ranchette starts to crumble under the pressure of a Wyoming winter ("Man Crawling Out of Trees"). A 4th-generation rancher is squeezed into a desperate corner by rising costs, falling prices, coalbed methane drilling, and a disintegrated family ("What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?").

A hundred years of Wyoming history are compressed into a story about the fortunes of a wealthy polo-playing family, the empty shell of which is invaded by descendants of the massacred at Wounded Knee ("The Indian Wars Refought"). And finally, in my favorite story of the bunch, a young man trying to pull his life back together finds himself in a nightmarish situation involving a violent neighbor ("The Wamsutter Wolf"). This one had me sitting up past my bedtime, wide-eyed in the night and heart pounding.

The tone of the stories varies with the publication they were written for, and these range from The New Yorker to the literary quarterlies, to Playboy. Once you get over that, you can settle back and just let Proulx pull out whatever stops she cares to, to create one heck of a read - and one right after another.

Readers who enjoy her broadly humorous Elk Tooth stories will enjoy Robert Welsch's comic collection, "It's Not the End of the Earth, But You Can See It From Here," set in fictional Centralia, Nebraska.

This volume of Wyoming stories is just as true, and at times as harsh, as "Close Range," but it is infused with more humor. I found it a much easier read than "Close Range." However, it did not resonate with me the same. It was overall a lighter take on Wyoming life. I would recommend it, but only after you read "Close Range."

These stories range from mildly funny to utterly bizarre, and as I savored each tidbit I could barely wait for more. Heck, this was worth reading just to get acquianted with folks with names as Runyonesque as can be. The whole assemblage ends up with the flavor of modern fairy tales; in the end, a lesson is learned, good wins over evil, the prince & princess live happily ever after. Sort of, in a crooked way. I liked the connectivity, the fact that because I'd read about a character in one story I already had the inside scoop on him or her as played out in a subsequent tale. And of course the "character" of Wyoming plays out across the whole book. This book is a good summer read.

This book of stories depicts the life of the sparsely populated lands of Wyoming. The hardscabble, tough fought life for existence is depicted with Proulx' usual excellence. Her language is that of the Wyoming environment. Her characters are the wind toughened, deep winters folks of the life that tests each and every persons ability to cope with a severe environment.

Her stories are loosely connected through the bars that the people of Wyoming patronize and some of the characters that reappear from story to story. From her story about the devil's hole that consumes people in flames, to the unique method of keeping cattle off one's land, the stories are true and bare portrayals of an existence of challenge.

The book is recommended to all readers who like great prose and excellent depictions of hard lives with which Annie Proulx is so familiar. Her life in both Wyoming and Newfoundland allows her to observe how those that live in such challenging territories manage to keep on going. Once again, Proulx creates a wonderful portrait of life under stress. It is a truly fine read.

This is a great book. Many of the stories had me laughing out loud. I didn't find BAD DIRT as 'bleak' as CLOSE RANGE and POSTCARDS. I almost didn't read it, because I found the two others listed above as just too much hardship and deprivation. I kept repeating the word 'bleak' about Annie Proulx's writing, until I read BAD DIRT. Give it a try, you won't be sorry.

This was the second Annie Proulx book of her Wyoming Stories, that I've read. I'm ready to go for a third!
Her characters are drawn well, very human and often quirky. She gives you a real feel for the Wyoming country, the people who live there, and the ones who stay and survive. Some of her stories border on fantasy, and they are some of the most memorable. These are all short stories, three of them are worth reading over and over.
My favorites: "The Hellhole" a very darkly funny story about what happens to people who break the fish & game laws. "The Old Badger Game" about a badger who's convinced a rancher's wife is crazy about him. "Summer Rental" is a lot of fun, and a novel way to deal with problem neighbors and their cattle. I can't recommend Annie Proulx highly enough! Reading her stories is like going to live in Wyoming, she paints her characters and landscapes so vividly, you feel like you are there.