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Bird cloud : a memoir
Proulx, Annie.
Adult Nonfiction 921 P93974 2011b
From Publishers' Weekly:
The Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Brokeback Mountain portrays her flawed paradise in the majestic, hardscrabble West in this vibrant memoir. Proulx bought a 640-acre nature preserve by the North Platte River in Wyoming and started building her dream house, a project that took years and went hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget. In her bustling account, Proulx salivates over the prospect of a Japanese soak tub, polished concrete floor, solar panels, and luxe furnishings that often turn into pricey engineering fiascoes. The meticulous master builders she dubs the James Gang are the book's heroes. Though the house never quite lives up to its promise, it does inspire the author's engrossing natural history of the locale. Proulx drives cattle off of the overgrazed terrain; finds stone arrowheads; recounts the lore of the Indians, ranchers, and foppish big-game hunters who contested the land; and documents the antics of the eagles, magpies, mountain lions, and other critters who tolerate her presence. Like her fiction, Proulx's memoir flows from a memorable landscape where "the sagebrush seems nearly black and beaten low by the ceaseless wind"; the result is a fine evocation of place that becomes a meditation on the importance of a home, however harsh and evanescent. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Library Journal:
When a cherished dream-to make real one's vision of hearth and home in the vastness that is Wyoming-actually materializes, then one has to come to terms with the realities of cliffs and rivers and a "Falling Cow" incident. As Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Proulx ("Brokeback Mountain") became dissatisfied with an adequate house in a funky, small Wyoming town by the cross-country ski trails of the Snowy Mountains, she became drawn to the rabbit brush grasslands and rocky cliffs along the North Platte River, on the outskirts of Saratoga, WY, a landscape that spoke to and seduced her. Her memoir reflects upon the resulting act of creation, the design and construction of her new home, called Bird Cloud, an integration of art and nature that became sanctuary for her working library and writing space. VERDICT When reality confronts dream and one must notice the rocks, stones, sticks, and bones of everyday life, when Proulx relates the history, prehistory, and natural history of the land, that's when this memoir takes wing upon the Wyoming wind. Recommended for all builders of the Western dream.-Nathan E. Bender, Laramie, WY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Proulx, Annie.
Adult Nonfiction 921 P93974 2011b
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From Publishers' Weekly:
The Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Brokeback Mountain portrays her flawed paradise in the majestic, hardscrabble West in this vibrant memoir. Proulx bought a 640-acre nature preserve by the North Platte River in Wyoming and started building her dream house, a project that took years and went hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget. In her bustling account, Proulx salivates over the prospect of a Japanese soak tub, polished concrete floor, solar panels, and luxe furnishings that often turn into pricey engineering fiascoes. The meticulous master builders she dubs the James Gang are the book's heroes. Though the house never quite lives up to its promise, it does inspire the author's engrossing natural history of the locale. Proulx drives cattle off of the overgrazed terrain; finds stone arrowheads; recounts the lore of the Indians, ranchers, and foppish big-game hunters who contested the land; and documents the antics of the eagles, magpies, mountain lions, and other critters who tolerate her presence. Like her fiction, Proulx's memoir flows from a memorable landscape where "the sagebrush seems nearly black and beaten low by the ceaseless wind"; the result is a fine evocation of place that becomes a meditation on the importance of a home, however harsh and evanescent. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Library Journal:
When a cherished dream-to make real one's vision of hearth and home in the vastness that is Wyoming-actually materializes, then one has to come to terms with the realities of cliffs and rivers and a "Falling Cow" incident. As Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Proulx ("Brokeback Mountain") became dissatisfied with an adequate house in a funky, small Wyoming town by the cross-country ski trails of the Snowy Mountains, she became drawn to the rabbit brush grasslands and rocky cliffs along the North Platte River, on the outskirts of Saratoga, WY, a landscape that spoke to and seduced her. Her memoir reflects upon the resulting act of creation, the design and construction of her new home, called Bird Cloud, an integration of art and nature that became sanctuary for her working library and writing space. VERDICT When reality confronts dream and one must notice the rocks, stones, sticks, and bones of everyday life, when Proulx relates the history, prehistory, and natural history of the land, that's when this memoir takes wing upon the Wyoming wind. Recommended for all builders of the Western dream.-Nathan E. Bender, Laramie, WY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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