Accordian Crimes, Annie Proulx

Something has always attracted me to Annie Proulx' novels. There is a bleakness to them, it's not that they are depressing per se (well, they are...) but it's more to it than that. A darkness, a dirtiness, almost sinful. I looked forward to reading this novel with a dark glee - hoping for interesting tales that I could sink my teeth into secretly in bed each night.

Sadly I was midly disappointed with this novel. Each chapter is it's own story of migrants in America, each finding the mysterious green accordian, and we watch a snippet of their dark, sometimes sordid lives. With each scene is set with a different character and their surrounding families - throughout different areas of America. We follow the accordian and migrants from Italy to New York, the Midwest (in the hands of Germans), Texas (Mexicans), Maine/Canada (French), Louisiana (black slaves from Nantes) and Chicago (Poles) each with a different story to tell, a different subset of society they hate, and why they themselves are hated.

Because of the general undercurrent of dispair throughout the novel, I found myself not wanting to read it, as it was one dark tale after another, with rarely anything positive happening. Or even if it did, (such as the Polish couple winning an accordian playing and singing competition) it was seduced by a dark side and darker elements that would slowly wear away at each snippet of goodness.

The prose is lyrical, with incredible use of metaphor, every city that each chapter focussed on became more realistic, with sights and sounds vividly and richly described, I felt almost transported to each place.

I really felt that there wasn't enough content and background to each story, but because each story needed to have enough impact in but a few short pages each sotry becomes angrier and more frustrated at each situation, but almost mocks itself in a sardonic way. Not quite brutal as say Bret Easton Ellis's 'Less than zero', more like Stephen King's 'Dolores Claiborne'.

I don't think I'd read this novel again primarily because it was so dark, I definitely enjoyed 'Shipping News' and 'That old ace in the hole' much more.