That Old Ace in the Hole

By: Annie Proulx

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, when he takes a job with Global Pork Rind - his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.

Dollar finds himself in a Texas town called Woolybucket, whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country. These are tough men and women who witnessed first-hand tornadoes, dust storms, and the demise of the great cattle ranches. Now it's feed lots, hog farms, and ever-expanding drylands.

Dollar settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for $50 a month, helps out at Cy Frease's Old Dog Cafe, targets Ace and Tater Crouch's ranch for Global Pork, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old owners will hold on to their land, even though their children want no part of it.

Robust, often bawdy, strikingly original and intimate, That Old Ace in the Hole tracks the vast waves of change that have shaped the American landscape and character over the past century. In Bob Dollar, Proulx has created one of the most irresistible characters in contemporary fiction.

©1993 Annie Proulx (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

"Proulx is our laureate of landscape, the expansive descriptions of natural phenomena worthy of Barry Lopez or Edward Hoagland. [Her] fiction has become even richer book by book. With this funny and haunting panorama... she has managed to outdo her previous outdoing." ( The New York Observer)

"Annie Proulx's writing is charged with wit - alive, funny, packed with brilliantly original images." ( USA Today)

"[In] That Old Ace in the Hole, Proulx's hardscrabble wit and wisdom are heightened by the force of her language - her bone-deep feel for its curves and crevices." ( The Boston Globe)

Annie Prolux’ writing is incredible!

Her ability to develop all of her characters and her stories are second to none! The story has so many different colorful characters, and as I had the pleasure to listen to the audio version, they were right there, knew them all and cared so much for them all.
I’ve never been good at reviewing books, but I just wanted to give 100 stars and so many kudos to this magnificent writer!

Highly enjoyable. Annie Proulx at her best

superior narration by Tom Stechschulte really brings this tale of the unique panhandle area of Texas to life. His accents are excellent, and the characters literally leap to life with his excellent narration. Proulx is at her usual descriptive, but not wordy best. I found this book riviting.

solid historical. interesting

good but not amazing. good voices. fun story. nice but a little long. not bad

Narration was terrific

I wonder if reading it would be as entertaining as listening to the narrator. I just finished a book by Mary Roach where the narration was so bad it ruined the authors work, and this one was the polar opposite.

Great story

Genuine tales of the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. Historical people places and things meets modern fictional characters.

Humorous

Loved the stories and descriptions of the people in TX and OK. Narrator made this book.

Cowboys, Pigs, Bakelite and Windmills - Wonderful!

This book is about dust and sweat and bad smells, so I didn't expect to like it so much. Now after the second listen, I admire author and narrator more than ever. With a mom born in Grand Prairie and husband born in Pampa, I needed to read it. The beginning is a bit slow. Once Bob is settled in with his uncle and later in his job, the story settles in with flashbacks, characters telling stories, Bob's reading which touches on history, and all kinds of instructive detours and delays. Someone bored by descriptions will just have to get over it. Anyone put off by gay people, ditto, though the most important characters are hetero. I sent a print copy to my friend, thinking she would enjoy the descriptions of food. Stechschulte is a marvelous narrator -- right up there with Humphrey Bower, Davina Porter and Juliet Stevenson. He gets the accent just right, and his women are as believeable as the men. . . . I'll never forget the Dutch windmill expert who washed and ironed his shirts in camp and died a millionaire. Or the old Indian going to live with his daughter. This is great American literature. Thank you, Annie!

Good listen

The did an excellent job bringing the story to life. I enjoyed the character development and also learning a bit about the history of and effects of corporate hog farms.

Great story, but get the pronounciations right

Annie Proulx is a gifted writer. I live in the Oklahoma Panhandle and have land in the Texas Panhandle and she nailed it! Though sometimes I was thinking, "C'mon Annie, we're not all like that." Her description of windmills, hog farms and corporate greed combined with fiercely independent people who take pride in living in a harsh environment was also spot on. My husband is a windmiller and he listened to the sections about windmill repair and he couldln't believe she was NOT a windmiller, so vivid and accurate were the descriptions. But none of this matters if the story isn't entertaining..and it is wonderfully entertaining.
There was one thing that made listening to the the book a little irritating. The narrator mispronounced several towns in the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. It wouldn't have been hard to learn the correct pronounciations and it took away from some of the authenticity of the work. So it you're listening, he's butchering these names: Boise City, Oklahoma; Stinnet, Texas; Follett, Texas ... there were more, but these were the biggies.

Novel but like a series of stories

I love Annie Proulx's work. This novel is less structured than her famous The Shipping News and more like her great short stories. Her wit and sass always amuse me. The underlying story concerns a young man sent to the Texas Panhandle region as a scout for huge hog operations -- who loves the region and develops a connection to its people. Some of the back-stories concern characters who go back to the days of freight wagons, which preceded the railroads in developing the area. I wish more of Annie Proulx's material was available in audiobook form.