The Geographical Imagination of

Rethinking Regionalism

EDITED BY ALEX HUNT

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction The Insistence of Geography in the Writing of Annie Proulx Alex Hunt I

ORIENTATIONS

The Influence of theAnnales School on Annie Proulx's Geographical Imagination Stephanie Durrans 11

Proulx and the Postmodern Hyperreal Margaret E. Johnson 25

Drinking the Elixir of Ownership: Pilgrims and Improvers in the Landscapes of Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole and Christian Hummelsund Voie 39

Postnational United States Regional Hinterlands: Proulx's Ethnic Working-Class Communities in Accordion Crimes Douglas Werden 51

GEOGRAPHIES

Born Under a Bad Sign: The Question of Geographical Determinism in the Hardscrabble Northern Borderlands of and Other Stories Hal Crimmel 63

The Corpse in the Stone Wall: Annie Proulx's Ironic New England Kent C. Ryden 73

"All the qualities o' th' isle": The Shipping News as Island Myth Paul Chafe 87

VII viii Table of Contents

Annie Proulx's Wyoming: Geographical Determinism, Landscape, and Caricature O. Alan Weltzien 99

Westward Proulx: The Resistant Landscapes of Close Range: Wyoming Stories and That Old Ace in the Hole Elizabeth Abele 113

DIRECTIONS

Landed Bodies: Geography and Disability in The Shipping News Jennifer Denise Ryan 127

The Location of Immigration: Itinerant Communities and Cultural Hybridity in Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes Bonnie Roos 141

Brokeback Mountain as Progressive Narrative and Cinematic Vision: Landscape, Emotion, and the Denial of Domesticity Christopher Pullen 15 5

Capitalism vs. Localism: Economies of Scale in Annie Proulx's and That Old Ace in the Hole Wes Berry 169

The Ecology of Narrative: Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole as Critical Regionalist Fiction Alex Hunt 183

Afterword Red Desert: The History of a Place, and Annie Proulx as Environmental Historian Dan Flores 197

Bibliography 201

Index 211

Contributors 215