That Old Ace in the Hole

That Old Ace in the Hole
	First edition cover
Author	Annie Proulx
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	4th Estate
Publication date	2002
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	359 pp
ISBN	0-00-715152-7

That Old Ace in the Hole is a 2002 novel by Annie Proulx.[1][2][3]

Plot

Bob Dollar was abandoned by his parents and was brought up by his eccentric uncle.[4] Dollar is sent by his employer, the multinational "Global Pork Rind Corporation", to scout for locations for intensive hog farming in the Texas Panhandle. Dollar goes about the work of meeting local down-on-their-luck farmers to manipulate them into selling out.[3] He bases his search in the fictional town of Woolybucket, named after the real tree species, Sideroxylon lanuginosum.[2]

There he gets a job at Woolybucket's Old Dog restaurant, and moves into an old bunkhouse in local historian LaVon Fronk's ranch. The inhabitants of the town and the region's quirkiness and stubbornness work on the fundamentally decent Dollar.[1] The ace in the hole of the title is Ace Crouch, who quietly leads Dollar to a "kind of small, quiet and personal redemption."[1][3]

Critical reception

Writing in The Observer, Adam Mars-Jones described the book as "richer in wishful thinking than in the hard knowledge that the author has so patiently acquired."[5]

gollark: Fast video encoding is less space-efficient and/or worse quality.

gollark: Because you're wrong, obviously. More data → more good.

gollark: I have a 4TB disk but it only holds backups.

gollark: So your personal files take up more space.

gollark: Have you tried having more files?

References

Delia Falconer (2002-12-21). "That Old Ace In The Hole". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
Miller, Laura (2002-12-15). "The News From Woolybucket". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
A. N. Wilson (2003-01-13). "Seduced by a panhandle. A N Wilson acclaims a contemporary Dickens". New Statesman. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
Katherine A. Powers (19 January 2003). "Hog Wild". The Washington Post. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
Adam Mars-Jones (5 January 2003). "With a wealth of detail and a host of absurdly named characters, Annie Proulx struggles with her research in That Old Ace in the Hole". The Observer. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 29 November 2014.

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[SMH_21Dec2002_DeliaFalconer_ThatOldAceInTheHole-1] Delia Falconer (2002-12-21). "That Old Ace In The Hole". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2009-11-15.

[NYTimes_15Dec2002_LauraMiller_TheNewsFromWoolybucket-2] Miller, Laura (2002-12-15). "The News From Woolybucket". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-11-15.

[NewStatesman_13Jan2003_ANWilson_Seducedbyapanhandle-3] A. N. Wilson (2003-01-13). "Seduced by a panhandle. A N Wilson acclaims a contemporary Dickens". New Statesman. Retrieved 2009-11-15.

[The_Washington_Post_-_January_19,_2003_-_Hog_Wild-4] Katherine A. Powers (19 January 2003). "Hog Wild". The Washington Post. Retrieved 13 March 2019.

[The_Observer_-_5_January_2003_-_With_a_wealth_of_detail_and_a_host_of_absurdly_named_characters,_Annie_Proulx_struggles_with_her_research_in_That_Old_Ace_in_the_Hole-5] Adam Mars-Jones (5 January 2003). "With a wealth of detail and a host of absurdly named characters, Annie Proulx struggles with her research in That Old Ace in the Hole". The Observer. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 29 November 2014.