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Close Range
Annie Proulx. Scribner: 2000. ISBN: 0684852225. 285 pages.
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About the Author
A page of detailed biographical information on Close Range, including excerpts from interviews in which Proulx interprets her own work.
Outspoken and opinionated, Proulx doesn’t shy away from making controversial statements. “I rarely put female characters in the up-front place in a story or novel,” she admits. “That is a reflection of the real world, like it or not.”
All in the Family
A synopsis of the literary traditions and genres with which Close Range is affiliated and a brief explanation of these connections, giving your book group the opportunity to understand Proulx’s novel in a larger literary perspective.
Legless cowboys, horses that live in houses, talking tractors—just what the heck is going on in these stories? Is this magical realism? The debate goes on, but one thing’s for sure: Proulx’s stories often startle us with their raw combination of the real world and the otherworldly.
Character Tree
A list of major characters and their dominant characteristics and values, showing characters’ relationships to each other.
Last we counted, there were 74 characters listed in this section (and we didn’t include some of the minor characters who are mentioned only in passing!). With names like Flyby Amendinger, you think you’d remember them all, but we expect it’ll be mighty handy to have all the characters listed story by story, just in case.
Streams of Themes
A breakdown of potential major discussion themes in Close Range, including ways these themes are interconnected.
Isolation, loneliness, violence, sexism, the savagery of men, and the cruelty of the natural world—if you were to take a quick look at these themes before reading Close Range, you might think it’s just one big downer. And in some ways, it is. But it’s not all dark and dreary—there are themes about family, love, and home, too.
Talk Back to the Critics
Excerpts of some major critical reviews of Close Range from authoritative journals, newspapers, and magazines. We encourage your book group to enjoy the opportunity to argue with expert opinion.
Critics love to fight about this book. Regardless of how they judge Proulx’s portraits of the Old and New West, all reviewers seem to agree on one thing: this woman can write a damn good sentence. But as always, there are detractors, like the critic who claims that Proulx’s “treatment of the West is transparent and cliched and the stories contrived.” You’ll have great fun deciding which critics are right (and which ones are just jealous).
Doorways to Discussion
A chronologically and thematically organized list of discussion questions, which function to explore, in a logical and thoughtful manner, the questions and possibilities that Close Range evokes.
To make it easy for your group to discuss as many or as few of the stories as you wish, we include a few questions for each story and some general questions on the collection as a whole. Here’s one example of the 66 questions featured in this section: “What do these stories have to say about the legitimacy of the mythology of the Old West?”
Taste Test
A selection of other books on subjects similar to those in Close Range to consider for future book group meetings or for private reading.
If you’d like to read more powerful, contemporary fiction of the American West; if you’d like to delve into other great short story collections; or if you’re intrigued by fiction that features an unusual, isolated setting—we’ve included lots of books we think you’ll enjoy!
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