That Old Ace in the Hole

By: Annie Proulx

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

From Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx comes an exhilarating story brimming with language, history, landscape, music, and love.

Bob Dollar is a young man from Denver trying to make good in a bad world. Out of college and aimless, Dollar takes a job with Global Pork Rind, scouting out big spreads of land that can be converted to hog farms. Soon he's holed up in a two-bit Texas town called Woolybucket, where he settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease's Old Dog Café, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old Texas ranch owners will hold on to their land, even when their children want no part of it.

Robust, often bawdy, strikingly original, That Old Ace in the Hole traces the waves of change that have shaped the American West over the past century—and in Bob Dollar, Proulx has created one of the most irrepressible characters in contemporary fiction.

solid historical. interesting

good but not amazing. good voices. fun story. nice but a little long. not bad

Highly enjoyable. Annie Proulx at her best

superior narration by Tom Stechschulte really brings this tale of the unique panhandle area of Texas to life. His accents are excellent, and the characters literally leap to life with his excellent narration. Proulx is at her usual descriptive, but not wordy best. I found this book riviting.

Annie Prolux’ writing is incredible!

Her ability to develop all of her characters and her stories are second to none! The story has so many different colorful characters, and as I had the pleasure to listen to the audio version, they were right there, knew them all and cared so much for them all.
I’ve never been good at reviewing books, but I just wanted to give 100 stars and so many kudos to this magnificent writer!

Good listen

The did an excellent job bringing the story to life. I enjoyed the character development and also learning a bit about the history of and effects of corporate hog farms.

Narration was terrific

I wonder if reading it would be as entertaining as listening to the narrator. I just finished a book by Mary Roach where the narration was so bad it ruined the authors work, and this one was the polar opposite.