I enjoyed this book. A dear Utah friend, Doug, sent it to me when I moved to Wyoming. It fulfilled two needs: Entertaining short, breezy stories and insights to Wyomingites.. I enjoyed "Bad Dirt" so much, in fact, I'm contemplating starting an Annie Proulx book club at my public library.
She has a hodge-podge of characters -- a couple from New York who purchased a retirement home outside Jackson, an heiress in Casper who plays polo in Sheridan, plenty of ranchers and even a group of talking badgers. Only one group of characters in the invented town of "Elk Tooth" are a group she returns to throughout the book, with maybe three or four stories about them.
The people she writes about are almost all made up, and so are the narratives, except for history. She references Buffalo Bill and the Teapot Dome Scandal, for instance.
Oh, there's some surrealism, too, in some of the stories. I'm not a big fan of the genre, but in one story in particular, the surreal events are the perfect way to solve a problem. And when I finished the story, I "got it" so to speak. I too have had times when I figured, if only there would be a freak snowstorm in the middle of September, then I wouldn't have to take that spelling test tomorrow!
She writes with a sense of humor. One of my favorite lines: "Elk Tooth, Wyoming, has little going for it beyond the junkyard despite a population of nearly eighty people."
That's not entirely an exaggeration. In these parts, any town over 10,000 will make the list of the top 10 most populated cities in the state.
Proulx's use of dialogue is entertaining, although I can't honestly say whether I've heard anyone talk the way she writes. There are some expressions and mixed-up grammar in Wyoming, but Proulx doesn't use what I hear and I don't think I'm hearing what she writes.
Proulx stereotypes people and towns in some ways -- and she doesn't fully understand oil, gas and other resource development, in my opinion. She does seem to have a good understanding of ranching and issues with poaching and state forestry, fish and game agencies.
If people are looking to characterize Wyoming as a "red state" or think poverty is why so many Wyomingites live in mobile homes, this is not the book for them. Proulx offers a more complex serving of Wyoming.
"Bad Dirt" shows how the land and ruralness affects people's motivations.
Wyoming shapes people but perhaps more importantly, it shows people are people regardless of where they live.
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