A richly textured story of one man's struggle to make good in the inhospitable ranch country of the Texas panhandle, told with razor wit and a masterly sense of place.
Folks in the Texas panhandle do not like hog farms. But Bob Dollar is determined to see his new job as hog site scout for Global Pork Rind through the end.
Determined not to turn out like his parents who left him on his Uncle Tams doorstep as a child. And afflicted by an ability to believe in his own daydreams - to the point of forgetting that he made them up in the first place.
Bob is looking for his big break in Woolybucket, a town whose fiercely idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country, from tornadoes and dust storms to the discovery and demise of the oil wells. These tough men and women seem to grow stronger with age, seasoned by the rigours of their life.
With characteristic gusto, Annie Proulx serves up a melting pot of history, landscape and quixotic Texan culture in a magnificent novel about chasing dreams in a dustbowl.
