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That Old Ace in the Hole is the fourth novel by Annie Proulx, a writer I adore, published in 2002. Unlike its immediate predecessors, The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes, it was received rather coldly by critics, didn’t achieve significant commercial success, didn’t win any literary awards, and no film or theater adaptation has been made. But, most importantly, it is my favorite novel by Annie Proulx who, as I already mentioned a line above, is a writer I adore. Yes, I like it even more than the beautiful and more celebrated The Shipping News, or Avviso ai Naviganti, however you want to call it, which I have also reviewed.
However.
My adoration (and we’re at three) for the writer and the novel in question doesn’t prevent me from understanding its limits. That Old Ace in the Hole is not one of those books with universal appeal, definitely not; it is set in the heart of the American High Plains, mainly in a rectangle of land known as the Texas Panhandle, a region that in the literary field (and more generally in the collective imagination) can only be indissolubly associated with the "mythology" of the western: rangers and bandits, Indians and cowboys, manifest destiny, and so on. But this isn't a western; no, the Panhandle told in these pages is a region in slow but seemingly irreversible decline. The population decreases year by year, water becomes increasingly scarce, and the vast ranches and herds of the past are just a distant memory, replaced by the oil industry and intensive pig farming.
And our protagonist, a curious and gentle-natured boy named Bob Dollar (whose surname is a clear example of the subtle and impertinent irony typical of this writer), arrives in the tiny, sleepy fictional town of Woolybucket precisely tasked with buying land from the locals to build pig farms on behalf of a foreign multinational. Given the strong and justified aversion of the locals, he will have to resort to deceitful tricks. Besides being, by nature, as far removed from a ruthless swindler as possible, Bob will gradually grow fond of that corner of the world, fascinating in its own way, which will make his existential crisis even more difficult to resolve.
I said earlier that That Old Ace in the Hole is not a western book, but the "epic" past of the region where it is set lives on in the numerous flashbacks scattered throughout the novel, and it is mainly in these flashbacks that the second great protagonist "lives" and operates, namely Ace Crouch, the Ace of the title. Like Don Quixote, Ace deals with windmills, but doesn’t fight them, he fixes them. This is one of those splendid creative refinements typical of Annie Proulx because Ace too is a relic of an era that has long since passed, but refuses to resign himself to the evidence. Ace Crouch is one of those memorable and perfectly crafted characters that can be interpreted both realistically and allegorically: he is an uncompromising idealist, a libertarian who understands that the best way to truly preserve the old western ethics lies in strengthening local communities, not big capital, but also a clever man not without entrepreneurial instinct.
Bob is very close to who I really am, Ace to who I would like to be; this is, ultimately, the main reason I love this book so much, but of course, there is much more. Old Ace is a mosaic full of colors, often strongly contrasting colors; improbable characters, sometimes glaringly caricatured, and comically surreal situations in abundance, as well as many moments of deep introspection and scenes of great lyricism and humanity, including the final dialogue between Ace and Bob. The landscape descriptions are very evocative and atmospheric, never self-serving, the mentality, culture, and customs of the Panhandle are presented in a very thorough manner with almost anthropological rigor, the result of meticulous field research, and Annie Proulx doesn't hide anything from the reader, not even the less pleasant aspects: the Panhandle is one of the most conservative and religious areas in all the USA, with all that entails, and this adds a layer of further complexity to an already masterfully faceted novel that lends itself to countless interpretations.
What is my personal interpretation, ultimately? I think that, from a certain point of view, Old Ace is, at least in part, a fable. The conclusion, above all, has very little realism. In the real world, someone like Ace Crouch, so determined to undermine the interests of economic "Leviathans" much bigger than him, would easily be persuaded otherwise, by fair means or foul, not here. But Annie Proulx does not take the most obvious route anyway, she doesn’t assume that David will triumph over Goliath, but gives Ace and Bob a chance to succeed happily, and in doing so, she states clearly that the path of standardization, of globalization, is not necessarily the only form of progress. In the novel and especially in the character of Ace, there is a strong conservationist and animalist component, a clear idea of sustainable development but, on a deeper level, the ultimate meaning of this book lies in that biblical word that seals John Steinbeck's East of Eden: Timshel, thou mayest, the gift of free will in a word.
Speaking of East of Eden: Annie Proulx explicitly mentions it in one of the countless little tableaux that form the backbone of this, for me, wonderful novel, and I must thank her for this precious bait, to which I obviously took. Who would I recommend the reading of That Old Ace in the Hole to? Certainly, to Americana enthusiasts, that’s the most obvious niche for such a novel, and more generally to anyone who wants to read something different and off the beaten path. It is certainly not a book for all tastes, as I have already said, the plot is very rarefied, fragmented, and progresses with great slowness, amid digressions, subplots, and secondary characters galore (all things I personally do not mind at all, especially if managed as Annie Proulx knows how to do). One of these secondary characters sprung from the brilliant, mordant imagination of Annie Proulx is a cowboy monk raising bison at his convent's ranch: Brother Mesquite, by far the coolest religious figure I have ever encountered on my literary travels. And with that said, finally, I can close.
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