CLOSE RANGE: WYOMING STORIES

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ''The Shipping News'' comes a collection of short stories inspired by the harsh and unforgiving landscape of Wyoming. Throughout the collection, Annie Proulx invests these stories with an intelligence and black humour that transforms them into something new and surprising. In one story, a slight young man defies his mother''s insults to become a rodeo star, while in another, an octogenarian finds himself drawn back to the ranch that he quit decades before -- against his better judgement. Elsewhere, Proulx demonstrates her taste for the macabre in a grisly tale of bad weather, gambling and amputation set a hundred years ago. Inventive, compassionate and wildly funny, these marvellous stories explore the unbreakable bond between a people and their land