Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2
 | |
| Author | Annie Proulx |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short story collection |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 2004 |
| Publication place | United States |
| ISBN | 978-0-7432-5799-2 |
| Preceded by | Close Range: Wyoming Stories |
| Followed by | Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 |
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 is a collection of short stories by Annie Proulx published in 2004.[1] It was not as well received by critics in comparison with Proulx's 1999 Close Range: Wyoming Stories.[2]
Stories
[edit]The collection consists of eleven stories, all set in Wyoming; Proulx moved to the state in the 1990s.[1] Five of the eleven stories are set in the fictional Wyoming town of "Elk Tooth",[2] a town of 80 inhabitants in which each individual "tries to be a character and with some success. There is little more to it than being broke, proud, ingenious and setting your heels against civilized society's pull".[3] A number of the stories had previously been published in The New Yorker.[4] "The Wamsutter Wolf" appeared in The Paris Review a few months before the collection was published.[5]
The Hellhole
[edit]Creel Zmundzinski,[6] a Wyoming Fish and Game warden, finds that a small patch in a roadside parking area will incinerate hunters without the correct licenses.[7] In Pee-Wee, one of Elk Tooth's three bars, his best friend Plato Bucklew commends Zmundzinski for sending wrongdoers literally to Hell.[8]
The Indian Wars Refought
[edit]An extended exposition about a family of small town Wyoming lawyers and polo players leads up to a narrative about a Native American woman who is employed to clear out the family's decaying office building.[9]
The widow of the last lawyer marries Charlie Parrott, who is of Oglala Sioux descent.[10] Parrott's daughter Linny is accepted by his new wife on the proviso that Linny clean through the lawyer family's archives and categorize what may be of value.[11] Amongst the detritus she finds reels of the 1913 Essanay Studios film The Indian Wars Refought produced by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody.[6] Linny is prompted to discover her hidden heritage: she reads Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and asks her father to take her back to the reservation he was born in.[10] He declines: "She would get involved, and after a few years of passionate activism she might fall away from it and end up on urban sidewalks in the company of street chiefs and hookers".[11]
The Trickle Down Effect
[edit]Elk Tooth resident and drinker at Elk Tooth's three bars (according to the book, "the Wyoming trickle down effect"[12]) Deb Sipple agrees to haul hay from Wisconsin to the drought-stricken[6] ranch of "lady rancher" Fiesta Punch.[13] Sipple tosses cigarette butts out the window of his flat-bed truck, igniting the hay and resulting in "the closest thing to a meteor ever seen in Elk Tooth... his truck a great fiery cylinder hurtling through the darkness".[4]
What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?
[edit]Rancher Gilbert Wolfscale tries and fails to adapt to modern realities. His wife leaves him and his children have no interest in him or his farm.[9] Despite what has been described as a "hokey title",[14] it was critically received as one of the stronger stories in the collection.[2][9]
The Old Badger Game
[edit]In what has been described as a "weird tale", three talking badgers gossip amongst themselves.[6] One of them – an untenured Creative Writing professor[8] – is convinced that a rancher's wife has fallen in love with him.[1] When the rancher shoots at him, he fancies this is out of jealousy; "but then, he'd been denied tenure and was a little sour on things".[15]
Man Crawling Out of Trees
[edit]Mitchell and Eugenie Fair are newcomers to Wyoming.[1] Though both are initially attracted to life there for their own separate reasons, they grow apart rather than together in the new environment.[7] The "man crawling out of trees" of the title is a skier with a broken leg who Eugenie Fair takes for a prowler instead of giving him aid, breaking a "cardinal rule" of the place.[16]
The Contest
[edit]The men of Elk Tooth pass the long winter with a beard-growing contest.[9] One contestant resorts to applying Viagra to encourage his beard.[8]
The Wamsutter Wolf
[edit]Greybull-born Buddy Millar[17] dislikes highways, preferring back roads, some the "serious bad dirt" of the title of the collection.[18] Millar finds himself back in Wyoming, in Wamsutter, more a huge trailer park off the I-80 than a town.[18]
Critical reception
[edit]The stories set in Elk Tooth were variously described as "mere squibs"[9] and "genuinely terrible".[2] Character names in the short story collection, "quirky characters with names to match",[13] include Orion Horncrackle,[19] Creel Zmundzinski and Plato Bucklew from "The Hellhole", Deb Sipple and Fiesta Punch from "The Trickle Down Effect". The A.V. Club review of Bad Dirt described them as a "helpful guide through this uneven collection... The wackier they are, the more disposable the story."[6]
"The Wamsutter Wolf" was awarded the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction.[20][21] In an interview with The Paris Review in 2009, Proulx stated that she preferred her short fictions to her novels.[21]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Geraldine Bedell (12 December 2004). "Roaming in Wyoming – Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2". The Observer. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
- ^ a b c d Terrence Rafferty (5 December 2004). "'Bad Dirt': A Town With Three Bars". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
- ^ "New fiction – Elk Tooth tales". The Economist. 6 January 2005. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
- ^ a b "Range roving - Bad Dirt by Annie Proulx". The Scotsman. Johnston Press. 17 December 2004. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ^ "The Paris Review No. 171, Fall 2004 – Fiction". The Paris Review. 2004. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
- ^ a b c d e Tobias, Scott (24 January 2005). "Annie Proulx: Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2". The A.V. Club. The Onion, Inc. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
- ^ a b O'Neal, Glenn (29 December 2004). "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 – Proulx gives grit to Wyoming denizens". USA Today. Gannett Company. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
- ^ a b c Laurel Maury (5 December 2004). "A spectacular land stomps and snarls". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved 20 May 2014.
- ^ a b c d e Peter Terzian (19 December 2004). "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 – Cowboys Are Her Weakness". The Washington Post. Washington Post Media. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ^ a b Sinclair, Clive (31 December 2004). "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 by Annie Proulx – Home on the range". The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Retrieved 15 May 2014.[dead link]
- ^ a b Markovits, Benjamin (12 December 2004). "Weighed down west - Benjamin Markovits reviews Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 by Annie Proulx". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
- ^ Annie Proulx (30 November 2004). Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2. Simon & Schuster. p. 50. ISBN 9780743273480.
- ^ a b Goldberg, Carole (2 January 2005). "Proulx's Humor, Rage In Wyoming Vignettes". Orlando Sentinel. Tribune Company. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
- ^ Walker, Nicola (1 January 2005). "Bad Dirt, Runaway: Nicola Walker explores the lives and characters of small-town America in these two collections of short stories". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
- ^ Annie Proulx (30 November 2004). Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2. Simon & Schuster. p. 91. ISBN 9780743273480.
- ^ Braile, Robert (2 February 2005). "Proulx's 'Bad Dirt' collection is uneven terrain". Boston.com. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
- ^ "At home on the range". The Scotsman. Johnston Press. 27 November 2004. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
- ^ a b Naparsteck, Martin (16 January 2005). "Proulx collection doesn't hit pay dirt". The Salt Lake Tribune. MediaNews Group. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
- ^ Annie Proulx (30 November 2004). Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2. Simon & Schuster. p. 5. ISBN 9780743273480.
- ^ "The Paris Review - Prizes - Aga Khan Prize". The Paris Review. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ^ a b "The Paris Review No. 199, Spring 2009 – The Art of Fiction". The Paris Review. Spring 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2014.