Annie Proulx

Libby Lewis Photography

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SAL Presents

Annie Proulx

Past Event: Thursday, June 23, 2016

At Temple de Hirsch Sinai

I think the study of history and the marshaling of facts, the comparison of societies and movements and power structures, is far more important to my writing. The fringe edges of dissolution and construction of societies. For me, mostly dissolution. Change. How the shape-shifting happens.

— Annie Proulx

It is hard to think of any living writer who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens, with the exception of Proulx.

— New Statesman

Like a mystic seeing the transfigured universe, she recreates the beauty of ordinary things.

— Independent on Sunday

Annie Proulx is a true original. She has a shrewd understanding of people, a strong feeling for landscape and a wry sense of humor rather like Mark Twain’s.

— Los Angeles Times

From Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of The Shipping News and Close Range, comes her masterpiece, Barkskins (2016), ten years in the writing—an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about taming the wilderness and destroying the forest, set over three centuries.

This event includes Proulx’s newest novel, Barkskins, to be released June 14, 2016. The event will include a brief reading by Proulx followed by a conversational interview. There will be a book signing at the conclusion of the evening. 

In the late seventeenth century two illiterate woodsmen, Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, make their way from Northern France to New France to seek a living. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they suffer extraordinary hardship, always in awe of the forest they are charged with clearing, sometimes brimming with dreams of its commercial potential. Rene marries an Indian healer, and they have children, mixing the blood of two cultures. Duquet travels the globe and back, starting a logging company that will prosper for generations. Proulx tells the stories of the children, grandchildren, and descendants of these two lineages, the Sels and the Duquets, as well as the descendants of their allies and foes, as they travel back to Europe, to China, to New England, always in quest of a livelihood or a fortune, or fleeing stunningly brutal conditions—accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, the revenge of rivals.

Beyond her vast research and astonishing imagination, Proulx’s inimitable genius is her creation of characters who are so vivid—in their greed, lust, vengefulness, sorrow, compassion and hope—that we follow them with fierce attention, and when they die, there are others equally visceral and magnetic who follow. Annie Proulx is one of the most formidable writers of our time, and Barkskins is her Moby Dick, the story she has been writing all her life, a magnificent American novel.

Annie Proulx is the author of eight books. Her many honors include a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and a PEN/Faulkner award. Her story “Brokeback Mountain,” which originally appeared in The New Yorker, was made into an Academy Award-winning film. She lives in Seattle.

 

Selected Works:

Novels
Barkskins (2016)
That Old Ace in the Hole (2002)
Accordion Crimes (1996)
The Shipping News (1993)
Postcards (1992)

Non-Fiction
Bird Cloud: A Memoir (2011)

Short Story Collections
Fine Just the Way It is: Wyoming Stories (2008)
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories (2004)
Close Range: Wyoming Stories (1999)
Heart Songs and Other Stories (1988)

Links

Simon & Schuster: Annie Proulx author page
The Wheeler Centre: Annie Proulx
AWP Conference & Bookfair: Annie Proulx keynote speech, Seattle 2014
The Paris Review: Annie Proulx, The Art of Fiction No. 199

Event Details

Temple de Hirsch Sinai

1441 16th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122

View directions.

Transportation & Parking

Temple De Hirsch Sinai is located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood and lives on an entire city block and has four entrances.

 

Driving Directions

  • From I-90 (Westbound)
    Take I-5 North. Take James-Madison exit, using MadisonTurn right (East) on Madison. Continue on Madison, crossing Broadway to 16thTurn right on 16th (the doors to the Sanctuary are on the right between East Pike & East Union).
  • From SR-520 (Westbound)
    Take Lake Washington Boulevard. Turn left at the end of the off-rampImmediately take the free right onto Lake Washington Boulevard going through the Arboretum. Turn right at the light on to Madison. Continue West on Madison to 16th. Turn left on 16th (the doors to the Sanctuary are on the right between East Pike & East Union)
  • From I-5 (Northbound)
    Take James-Madison exit, using Madison. Turn right (East) on Madison. Continue on Madison, crossing Broadway to 16th. Turn right on 16th. Turn right on 16th(the doors to the Sanctuary are on the right between East Pike & East Union).
  • From I-5 (Southbound)
    Take Union Street exit. Take first right onto 7th Avenue. Go one block to Pike, turn right. Take Pike to 16th. Turn right onto 16th (the doors to the Sanctuary are on the right between East Pike & East Union).

 

By Bus

Temple De Hirsch Sinai is served by numerous bus routes. For details and trip planning tools, call Metro Rider Information at 206.553.3000 (voice) or 206.684.1739 (TDD), or visit Metro online.

 

Parking

Limited parking is available in the lot on 16th Avenue across from the Sanctuary.

Accessibility

All of our venues have accessible seating and listening devices available. Please contact us at [email protected] or 206.621.2230 x10 for more details and to let us know you’re coming so we can better accommodate your needs.