Close Range

Wyoming Stories

By: Annie Proulx

Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Campbell Scott, Bruce Greenwood

Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Shipping News and Barkskins, showcases her “gritty and gleaming” (The New York Times Book Review) writing in Close Range, one of the most celebrated story collections of all time—includes “Brokeback Mountain.”

Annie Proulx’s masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In “The Mud Below,” a rodeo rider’s obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In “The Half-Skinned Steer,” an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home. In the iconic story “Brokeback Mountain,” the difficult affair between two cowboys survives everything but the world’s intolerance.

These are stories of desperation, hard times, and unlikely elation, set in a landscape both brutal and magnificent. Enlivened by folk tales, flights of fancy, and details of ranch and rural work, they juxtapose Wyoming’s traditional character and attitudes—confrontation of tough problems, prejudice, persistence in the face of difficulty—with the more benign values of the new west.

Stories in Close Range have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and GQ. They have been selected for the O. Henry Stories 1998, The Best American Short Stories of the Century, and A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker and have won the National Magazine Award for Fiction. This is work by an author writing at the peak of her craft.©1999 Annie Proulx; (P)2004 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Fabulously dark witted entertaining stories except chapter 6 cuts out in this version:(

I loved every single one of these short stories and appreciated the narration. However, bummed!!!!!!when right in the beginning of 2nd to the last of all the stories (chapter 6) just cuts out. Somehow it’s been obliterated in this version. Glad there are more stories. Looking forward to 2nd book in her ‘Wyoming Stories’. Thoroughly enjoyable

Masterful

For some someone who called Wyoming home Annie Proulx's Wyoming stories are like taking a trip back to the home place. Don't pass up any of her Wyoming short story compilations. She is a masterful story teller and lays bare the character of the people and the place. Her work is Beautiful, heartbreaking, accurate; modern mythos sounds like from the words of a brilliant writer who grasps the zeitgeist of a complicated land.

Great portrayal of Wyoming

This talented writer captured the essence of Wyoming and its people - harsh, fierce, determined, and a lot of stubborn! Her descriptions reminded me of a road trip I took across the state some 20 years ago. I had never before seen such colors when I encountered a rainstorm on the prairie, and the ceaseless wind seemed to erode my sanity. It was a memorable trip, but I don't think I left anything there that I need to retrieve, except perhaps in the Tetons. Nevertheless, I enjoyed these stories immensely!

Sensuous and Enveloping

Annie Proulx draws the reader into this rough and beautiful landscape of earth and hearts through her incisive description and complete acceptance of the terrible and strange and tender experiences of the people we meet in her words. Deserving of multiple listenings. The narrators seem perfectly matched to the stories they unfold.

greatest living writer

proulx is a force of nature. and she is the most intelligent person writing today and the reason I know that is because there's not one cliche in the book. totally original every sentence.