Annie Proulx cranked out her thesaurus but not her Strunk & White for this. Partly because of that article in The Atlantic but also on my own I rolled my eyes at the unnecessary sentence fragments. And the choppy sentences. Full of gerunding. Because it enhanced nothing. The author was wrong. And didn't care.
Both Lou and Minne, seeing the book on my desk, asked if I was rereading it. Is ten years old so old for a book? Both said they needed several score pages to get into it. Lou said unprompted that the style annoyed her. My sister said she gave up after a dozen pages or so. I preferred Far Afield for remote northern Atlantic outcast of Western civilization.
It reminded me of Anne Tyler, and a book does that to its peril. Hopeless, unlikeable characters living lives of quiet desperation. I say that on the (not) strength of Searching for Caleb and Breathing Lessons. My sister and Haitch love her, so I haven't written her off (as I have, say, Theodore Dreiser), but I'm not enthusiastic about anything more by her.
I should read Iris Murdoch or Eudora Welty but I'm reading Robin McKinley as a reward. Mleah.