Heart Songs and Other Stories [Paperback]

Annie Proulx (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 1995

Before she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx was already producing some of the finest short fiction in the country. Here are her collected stories, including two new works never before anthologized.

These stories reverberate with rural tradition, the rites of nature, and the rituals of small-town life. The country is blue-collar New England; the characters are native families and the dispossessed working class, whose heritage is challenged by the neorural bourgeoisie from the city; and the themes are as elemental as the landscape: revenge, malice, greed, passion. Told with skill and profundity and crafted by a master storyteller, these are lean, tough tales of an extraordinary place and its people.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The acclaimed debut short story collection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Downtrodden country folk in New England are at the heart and soul of this compilation of 11 short stories. The stories focus on rural activities (hunting or fishing) and sometimes delve into class differences between the poor townspeople and the rich outsiders. Although the subject matter may not appeal to every reader, the stories flow effortlessly and the prose is elegant. In "Heart Songs," Snipe pursues a calling in country music while recognizing in himself "a secret wish to step off into some abyss of bad taste and moral sloth." The author refers to another character as "thin as a folded dollar bill, her hand as narrow and cold as a trout." Proulx creates vivid characters with a clever turn of phrase or an illuminating analogy. This collection, initially published in 1988, includes two new short stories: "A Country Killing" and "Negatives." Recommended for most collections, though libraries with the 1988 edition may wish to pass.
Kimberly G. Allen, Network MCI Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Paperback Edition edition (March 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0020360754
• ISBN-13: 978-0020360759
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Annie Proulx's The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award for Fiction, and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. She is the author of two other novels: Postcards, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Accordion Crimes. She has also written two collections of short stories, Heart Songs and Other Stories and Close Range. In 2001, The Shipping News was made into a major motion picture. Annie Proulx lives in Wyoming and Newfoundland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To be read when you find it difficult to describe something, April 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Heart Songs and Other Stories (Paperback)

I read the Shipping news first. Struck by the wonderful use of language, in awe of the structure of this descriptive writing at its very best, I was not disappointed by these short stories written earlier. Some passages should be read again and again. One day, if not now, this author will be quoted as a modern classic

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars She has the talent..., May 18, 2001

By 

Jennifer A. Pinard "Jennifer Pinard" (Wolfeboro, NH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heart Songs and Other Stories (Paperback)

E. Anne Proulx has the amazing talent to describe the small moments and details in life that we pass by everyday...but which we can immediately visualize when they are word-painted for us. She is an author that implores your every sense (sight, smell, sound, taste, touch, memory, & nostalgia) as you read. But her writing is not flowery...in fact it has a dark edge to it. Her descriptions are only surpassed by her characterization. She introduces you to the heart of rural Vermont through characters that you both admire and loathe...sometimes simultaneously. This collection of short stories is not her most famous work, but is perhaps her most classic. It is an easy read for pleasure, but one with layers and layers of depth for those who want to delve and ponder.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Search of Lost Happiness, May 16, 2000

By 

Andrew Karbovsky - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heart Songs and Other Stories (Paperback)

To those, who were already enchanted by E.Annie Proulx's masterpieces ('Postcards' or 'The Shipping News'): do not eschew this collection of early short stories. They are not unskillful sketches of incipient, promising author but dazzlingly and glamorously brilliant splashes of her extraordinary talent (paradoxically both tragical and comical), unforgettable portraits of sundry people, to whom from the first pages you will feel admiration or aversion but never indifference or lack of interest, people in search of lost happiness... such as all of us are...