That Old Ace in the Hole

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man tryingto make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, when he takes a job with Global Pork Rind -- his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panahandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.Dollar finds himself in a Texas town called Woolybucket, whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country. These are tough men and women who witnessed first hand tornadoes, dust storms, and the demise of the great cattle ranches. Now it's feed lots, hog farms, and ever-expanding drylands.Dollar settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease's Old Dog Café, targets Ace and Tater Crouch's ranch for Global Pork, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old owners will hold on to their land, even though their children want no part of it.Robust, often bawdy, strikingly original and intimate, The Old Ace in the Hole tracks the vast waves of change that have shaped the American landscape and the character over the past century. In Bob Dollar, Proulx has created one of the most irresistible characters in contemporary fiction.

Auteur

Annie Proulx

Contenu

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1. Global Pork Rind 2. Art Plastic 3. On the Road Again 4. The Evil Fat Boy 5. No Room in Cowboy Rose 6. Sheriff Hugh Dough 7. The Rural Compendium 8. Pioneer Fronk 9. The Busted Star 10. Old Dog 11. Tater Crouch 12. Rope Butt 13. Habakuk's Luck 14. The Young Couple 15. Abel and Cain 16. Curiosity Killed the Cat 17. The Devil's Hatband 18. Just a Few Questions 19. The Sheriff's Office 20. Everything's O.K. So Far 21. Triple Cross 22. Ribeye Writes 23. Rich Orlando 24. Violet's Night on the Town 25. Top Sales 26. Brother Mesquite 27. Trip to Denver 28. Used but Not Abused 29. Ribeye Cluke's Office 30. Quick Change 31. Mrs. Betty Doak 32. Ace in the Hole 33. Failure 34. Barbwire