Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Proulx, Annie - Hilary Mantel (review date 11 May 2000)

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Hilary Mantel (review date 11 May 2000)

SOURCE: Mantel, Hilary. “Figures in a Landscape.” New York Review of Books (11 May 2000): 17–18.

[In the following review, Mantel commends Proulx's prose in Close Range, praising how Proulx “brings local and specific detail into focus for every reader.”]

When writers of fiction go out to peddle their wares to the public, one of the favorite audience questions is “How long did this book take to write?” It is a question which makes sense to readers, obviously, and to journalists, who like to sift authors into categories like “late starters” and “overnight successes.” But it seldom makes sense to practitioners. Maybe it's possible to pin down the moment when a particular plot line showed its colors against the undergrowth, or when a shift of the light threw up a detail once invisible against its background. You can say where an idea begins, but not where a sensibility has...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Loree Rackstraw (review date September 1989)
   2. Frederick Busch (review date 12 January 1992)
   3. William Green (review date 18 July 1993)
   4. Sandra Scofield (review date 1 August 1993)
   5. John Whitworth (review date 4 December 1993)
   6. John DeMont (review date 25 April 1994)
   7. Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 30 May 1994)
   8. Ronald Rompkey (review date September 1994)
   9. Jane Gardam (review date 25 March 1995)
   10. B. A. St. Andrews (review date spring 1995)
   11. Ellen Akins (review date 30 April 1995)
   12. Sybil Steinberg (essay date 3 June 1996)
   13. Bharati Mukherjee (review date 9 June 1996)
   14. Ellen Akins (review date 23 June 1996)
   15. Celia McGee (review date 24 June 1996)
   16. Phoebe-Lou Adams (review date July 1996)
   17. J. Z. Grover (review date September 1996)
   18. John Sutherland (review date 7 October 1996)
   19. Caroline Moore (review date 12 October 1996)
   20. Helen Carr (review date 18 October 1996)
   21. Mark Shechner (review date winter 1997)
   22. Vicky Greenbaum (essay date December 1997)
   23. Louise Flavin (essay date spring 1999)
   24. Merle Rubin (review date 3 June 1999)
   25. Dean Bakopoulos (review date September 1999)
   26. Rita D. Jacobs (review date spring 2000)
   27. Hilary Mantel (review date 11 May 2000)
   28. Erin McGraw (review date summer 2000)
   29. John Noell Moore (review date September 2000)
   30. Michael Kowalewski (review date winter 2001)
   31. Karen L. Rood (essay date 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright