Annie Proulx, Edna Annie Proulx in full,was born August of 1935 in Norwich, Connecticut. Growing up, she was the oldest of five sisters. Her dad was vice president of a textile company. She moved around often as a child and attended to Colby College in Maine, where she met her first husband. Proulx left school, and began working various jobs. She then went on to the University of Vermont in 1963, and then George Williams University located in Montreal in 1973. In the early seventies, Proulx began writing articles in magazines such as Esquire and Country Journal. Her big breaks came when she had two stories published in The Best American Short Stories in 1983 and 1987. She wrote her first fiction book titled, Heart Songs and Other Stories in 1988. Her first novel, Postcards (1992), won a Pen/Faulkner award and she was the first woman to achieve this honor. The Shipping News, the story of Quoyle and his family who leave the United States move to Canada after the death of his wife, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Her next novel was Accordion Crimes, which follows an Old World accordion’s travels to the United States through the immigration of an Italian man. She has also published three collections of stories that take place in Wyoming’s vast landscapes, where Proulx settled in 1994. It includes Brokeback Mountain, the love story of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, which has since been adapted into a movie. In her most recent work, a memoir titled Bird Cloud (2011), she recollects the building of her home in Wyoming. Britannica writes, her “darkly comic, yet sad fiction is peopled with quirky, yet memorable individuals and unconventional families.” Annie Proulx creates flawed characters who work through change and...
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... past experience, and continue to grow as individuals to better ourselves and our situations. Proulx captures the essence of this idea through the hard work of her flawed characters as they try to achieve happiness. Finding happiness and satisfaction can be obstructed by obstacles; sometimes these obstacles can hinder us from reaching that goal. To overcome is one of the greatest challenges.
Works Cited
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "E. Annie Proulx (American Author)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Kendrick, Walter. "The Song of the Squeeze-Box." New York Times, 23 June 1996. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Proulx, Annie. Accordion Crimes. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.
- - - . Brokeback Mountain. New York: Scribner, 2005. Print.
- - - . The Shipping News. New York: Scribner, 1993. Print.
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