Accordion Crimes

by Annie Proulx

Book Overview

E. Annie Proulx's "Accordion Crimes" is a masterpiece of storytelling that spans a century and a continent. Proulx brings the immigrant experience in America to life through the eyes of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684831546
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Scribner
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

hard not to love this accordian

I, like many readers, came to Ms. Proulx after reading her much-acclaimed "Shipping News," and was delightfully surprised that she switches gears completely and successfully with each new novel. The plot of Accordian Crimes, if you can call it that, is written within the same vein as several other films and novels of the nineties. The premice: the author follows a single object through its lifespan--proving that the lives of our possessions are oftentimes more interesting than our own.The green accordian of the title comes to the New World in the hands of an Italian musician. Both find themselves in New Orleans, itself an interesting melting-pot backdrop and initial setting. Proulx then follows the instrument through generation of immigrants: Italian, German, French-Canadian, Polish. Her prose is astounding and her language and history well-researched and authentic. Most of the immigrant groups come across as very unrefined, but all are linked through their desire to preserve their cultural heritage through music. And the accordian--one of the most ridiculed of all instruments--is the desired musical means.There is a twist to the ending which I found unnecessary, but all in all I found this book very engaging. I particularly recommend it to those interested in glimpsing a bit of the various groups that would leave their footprints across America, or what the United States was like before mass culture became the norm.

One paragraph, one life

It is my favourite Annie Proulx trait: her brief asides in which the life story of a minor, passing character is summed up to its often funny end. And of these asides, Accordion Crimes is rife. A sweeping, relentless cascade of characters, all of which you care for and identify with, populate this book which is my favourite by Proulx. Annie is "baroque" in the good sense of the word, as every page of hers is rich with multi-layered threads and numerous directions to the story.

Absurdities, chance circumstances and cruelties of life

This is an ambitious novel of Americana told through the device of anaccordion brought to New Orleans in 1890 by a Sicilian immigrant. Thebook is peopled with a huge variety of colorful characters, and theimmigrant experience of Italians, Africans, Germans, Mexicans, French,Polish and Irish people are depicted with her skillful socialperception, outstanding dialog and overflowing images of theabsurdities, chance circumstances and cruelties of their lives. Eachof her people die grim and violent deaths, and live small and hatefulllives. There are dozens of characters and not one of them is happy orfinds fulfillment. It is a dark novel, which is grim and depressingwith occasional comic elements which only enhance absurdities oflife.As I got more deeply into the book, I found it hard to pick upbecause I knew I would be bombarded with another sad story ofsomeone's useless and pain-filled life. And then I couldn't put itdown because, in spite of this, the skillful writing would pull mealong. The stories are loosely strung together, with occasionalflash-forwards for one of the characters, usually describing anotherfuture ugly meaningless death. She's writing about the underclass.And the reverse side of the American dream. She does it well. Sowell, in fact, that her images of lynching, illness, accidents,abusive relationships and cruelty are not easily forgotten. It is nota pleasant picture. But yet, it is surprisingly refreshing. Perhapsbecause, in spite of her deep and colorful characterizations, thereader doesn't feel particularly sympathetic to their tragedies andmeaningless lives.It's a good book, but read it only if you areunafraid to enter a world of unrelenting pain.

Another great book...

...from E. Annie Proulx. At turns funny, tragic and horrifying, "Accordion Crimes" tells the story of a small, green accordion as it passes through America from one immigrant or minority to another between 1891 and 1991. Through vibrant character sketches and textured historical context, Proulx exposes the similarities among and the prejudices experienced by Italians, Franco-Canadians, Mexicans, Poles, African-Americans, Irish-Scots and many other racial and ethnic groups throughout our history.

A book of short stories which sum up the American experience

In Accordion Crimes, Proulx wonderfully pulls together a cross-section of America for a hundred years to the present in interwoven short stories about the people whose lives intersect with a handmade accordion brought from Sicily to make its creator's fortune. The stories often end in the death of the current accordion owner which gives us in a dramatic way a sense that our own death will be as distinctively our own and as inevitable as the deaths of her characters. Instead of a great sentimentalized abstraction, Proulx shows that death is as ever-present as life, is the architect of life. In this book, even the accordion dies, slipping gracefully through its ages of usefulness, to disuse, to abandonment. This is a wonderful book and I recommend it to anyone who has been starved for REAL fiction as I have. Proulx is the real thing on a large scale. To those who were depressed by the book, I suggest taking a close look at their own lives because it seems to me they are wasting their time looking for meretricious comforts and have allowed their sensibilities to be lulled by too many soothing professional lies.