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Title: Crimes Against Fiction
Review: I have read everything that Annie Proulx has written. At her best, as in "The Shipping News" and "Close Range: Wyoming Stories," Proulx is unlike any author I've encoutered; her characters and landscapes burn with rage, passion, hardship and survival. However, in "Accordion Crimes," Proulx violates her readers' trust with implausible stories of gratuitous gore. The pretext for her lurid vignettes is a green accordion that passes to various immigrant families, whose members are dismembered in gruesome detail. While these stories may entertain a few execrable sociopaths, Proulx risks the alienation of her enthusiasts. One can only hope that this work is the aberrant creation of an otherwise unique and remarkable talent.
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