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Lead book review

Annie Proulx is lost in the woods

A great American novelist tackles complex themes in an epic account of the deforestation of North America. But this doesn’t make Barkskins the next great American novel

4 June 2016

9:00 AM

4 June 2016

9:00 AM

Barkskins Annie Proulx

4th Estate,, pp.714, £18.99, ISBN: 9780007232000

In spurts and bursts and flashes, a sublime novelist at work reveals herself. In Annie Proulx’s new novel, there are breath-taking pages and set pieces of extraordinary power. A man on board a ship, as the temperature plummets, sees all those around him embedded in ice before the catastrophe falls on him; a logging run down a river blocks, builds and explodes with the force of missiles; a wall of fire sweeps across a forested wildness.

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