As promised, my first book review: Postcards, by Annie Proulx.

I should begin by saying I hate Annie Proulx. I first read The Shipping News as a young teenager; it was one of the very few books I ever didn't finish. The most I remember of it was how achingly depressing it was. Not that everything had to be rainbows and unicorns, but there's something about an incessantly down-hearted book that I just couldn't wrestle with anymore.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. My mother is talking about Proulx. My mother loves Proulx's writing, her stories. She had finished Postcards and I, being hungry for a book after finishing a pile of library books, decided I would revisit this author. Give her another chance so to speak.

Postcards was just as relentlessly sad as I remember The Shipping News to be. It follows the life of one Loyal Blood, a farm boy who ditches home after murdering his girlfriend in the woods while having sex (?!). The stories of his mother, brother and sister (and, indirectly, his father) are all interspersed. Loyal, perhaps suffering PTSD from his crime, cannot get close to women without having some strange, asthmatic-like response slash panic attack and instead, he forms relationships with various people in his travels - essentially all men he finds work with along the way - but they never last as his life continues to unravel at the cruel hand of fate.

That one person is so continually shat upon by the universe is depressing. That he continues to write postcards to his family, ever assuming they're all still happily together and living life on the farm, is heartbreaking. The book ends with Loyal dying - alone, homeless and broken. Sheesh.

So needless to say, my dislike of Proulx was only confirmed. I didn't much care for her literary style; though I tolerate even the vaguest of ramblings by some authors, she was consistently hazy, leading you almost blindly through the story. Just not my cup of tea. I also never actually liked any of the characters, never really connected with any of them. To me, with characters being a drawing point of a particular book or author, that's tough to overcome.

Unfortunately, would not recommend.

Next on the list (I'm nearly done, whoops): Dances With Wolves.