A couple of weeks ago I was flicking through the channels late at night and came across a British documentary about author Annie Proulx. It was an indepth look at her research process while she was working on the book The Old Ace in the Hole. Proulx is a pretty quiet and serious person so the documentary was quiet as well but for this writer it was mesmerizing. She was filmed talking to people, driving endlessly around west Texas and back home sorting through the miles and miles of materials she collected. I loved the big table she had in her house, the way she needed to put all those papers out and look and them and touch them and consider how they could help her build a novel. I loved seeing the process unfold.

It might as well have been an action movie for the way it kept me on the edge of my seat.

I was reminded while watching it that I hadn't read her most recent book, the memoir Bird Cloud, yet. I just finished it last night and found it quite enjoyable, mostly because I have a thing for house building books and for explorations of place. I was surprised to discover though that Proulx is French Canadian and from New England. I'm still thinking about some of the things she wrote about her growing up years (and I'll be buying my own copy of the book after I return this one to the library), and plan to study those chapters a bit more. In some ways what she wrote resonates very strongly with me when I think of my father's family but in others - when she writes of how her family constantly moved around and this was a common French Canadian experience - I found myself a bit flummoxed. Maybe the difference is that my family was so heavily Catholic and thus wedded to their parish in a way that demanded they could never leave the neighborhood let alone the state. It's an interesting difference to think about and I wish my father was alive to discuss it, or my Uncle Ben who sent me his copy of The Shipping News so many years ago and insisted I stick with it and learn how to write about a place and its people. That this favored author is from a place I know so well and am writing (a bit) about now, is just amazing to me.

Here is something else I love about her from an LA Times interview in 2008:

Proulx got a late start as a writer. Her first book appeared in 1988, when she was 53 (unless you count the book/pamphlet on how to make hard cider). She says it's not really a late start if you "count the lifetime of reading" she did before she was published. "You treat characters differently when you know something about how life works -- how folks handle disappointments and wounding."

That gives this 42-year old debut author reason to smile. Proulx has staying power and I'll take that over being a wonder kid any day.

[More of Lizzy Stewart's Shipping News inspired artwork here. Post title is quote from the LA Times article.]