- Proulx, E. Annie
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▪ 1995E. Annie Proulx did not follow the customary advice to writers to "write about what you know." She preferred to write about what interested her—what she would like to know—and she enjoyed going to new places and writing about what she found there. Thus, for her second novel, The Shipping News, she made a number of trips to the Newfoundland coast and just hung around—watching the people, listening to them, and absorbing the atmosphere. She learned about the traditional life there and the ways that life was changing, and she found names for her characters in phone books and on bulletin boards. Her methods proved successful. For her novel about a Brooklyn, N.Y.-born newspaperman who moves to Newfoundland with his two daughters and his aunt, Proulx—after having already won the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the National Book Award—was the recipient of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.Edna Annie Proulx was born Aug. 22, 1935, in Norwich, Conn., and grew up in various towns in New England and North Carolina. She earned two degrees in history—a bachelor's degree from the University of Vermont in 1969 and a master's from Sir George Williams University, Montreal, in 1973. She was married and divorced three times, raised three sons, and for 19 years supported herself by writing magazine articles. She had written her first story at the age of 10, while she was sick in bed with chicken pox, and her first published short story appeared when she was in her early 20s. When she later returned to writing stories, they were all published, and in 1988 a collection, Heart Songs and Other Stories, came out.At the suggestion of an editor, she turned to novel writing. Postcards—which, in its illustration of the years from World War II to the 1990s in the rural U.S., features a New England farm family losing its home—was published in 1992. For that book, Proulx in 1993 captured the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.Proulx credited her mother, a painter, with teaching her how to see—to look carefully at the smallest detail of everything—and she learned her lessons well. Her work was highly praised for its vivid depiction of locale and character and, in addition, for its dark, offbeat humour. As of 1994 a third novel was more than half-finished, and several others already formed in her mind were waiting their turn. Proulx obviously would be taking many more trips to interesting new places. (BARBARA WHITNEY)
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▪ American authorin full Edna Annie Proulxborn Aug. 22, 1935, Norwich, Conn., U.S.American writer whose darkly comic yet sad fiction is peopled with quirky, memorable individuals and unconventional families. Proulx traveled widely, extensively researching physical backgrounds and locales. She frequently used regional speech patterns, surprising and scathing language, and unusual plot twists in her novels and short stories about disintegrating families who maintain attachments to the land.Educated at the University of Vermont (B.A., 1969) and Sir George Williams University, Montreal, Canada (M.A., 1973), Proulx settled in northern Vermont and later in Wyoming. She lived close to the land, about which she wrote frequently in freelance articles for such magazines as Gourmet. After publication of her first short-story collection, Heart Songs, and Other Stories (1988), Proulx turned to writing novels, which better accommodated her dense plots and complex characterizations. Postcards (1992), her first novel, uses the device of picture postcards mailed from the road over 40 years' time to illustrate changes in American life. The postcards are sent by Loyal Blood, who accidentally kills his girlfriend and abandons his family and their meager Vermont farm, escaping to a life of picaresque adventures.In The Shipping News (1993; film 2001), the protagonist Quoyle and his family, consisting of two young daughters and his aunt, leave the United States and settle in Newfoundland, Canada, after the accidental death of his unfaithful wife. The Shipping News was awarded both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Proulx's next novel was Accordion Crimes (1996), which examines the immigrant experience by tracing the life of an Old World accordion in the United States.Close Range: Wyoming Stories (1999) is a collection of stories set in the harsh landscapes of rural Wyoming. It includes Brokeback Mountain, the story of two ranch hands, Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar, whose friendship becomes a sexual relationship during a summer spent tending sheep in the 1960s. Afterward they pursue the traditional heterosexual lives expected of them but experience a lifetime of longing for each other. Originally published in The New Yorker magazine in 1997, Proulx's story was adapted as the film Brokeback Mountain (2005), directed by Ang Lee with a screenplay by Larry McMurtry (McMurtry, Larry) and Diana Ossana. In 2002 Proulx published the novel That Old Ace in the Hole about a man who scouts the Texas Panhandle for land to be acquired by a major corporation. Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 (2004) and Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 (2008) are collections of short stories.* * *
Universalium. 2010.