Rough Deeds by Annie Proulx, 2013
The magic trick:
Historical fiction brought to life with meticulously described action
This is first-rate historical fiction, taking us to the timber wars of early 18th century Canada and New England. Frankly, I didn’t previously know there were timber wars. But having read this, I feel like I was there experiencing them myself. The writing is so rich. She brings the time period to life not with facts and figures or exhaustive “lay of the land” world building. She doesn’t even belabor description of the setting all that much. What we get instead is meticulous, crystal-clear description of the story’s action.
I don’t know if she did that with research or imagination or both, but it’s outstanding work.
And that’s quite a trick on Proulx’s part.
The selection:
Duquet’s bloody interrogation gave him the information that the thieves were in the employ of a mill owner named McBogle, an agent of the politico Elisha Cooke. He had been hearing of Cooke for years; all described him as a passionate opponent of Crown authority, especially that vested in the English Surveyor-General, who struggled to enforce the dictate that all ship-mast pines were the property of the British Admiralty. But McBogle’s name was new. Although Duquet’s heart was pounding with anger, it occurred to him that Elisha Cooke and perhaps even McBogle might be useful men, and he fixed their names in his memory.
“Eh, no trees on Penobscot? Why you come here steal pine?” he said.
“We thought only to cut a few. Away from the surveyor’s men.”
Duquet did not believe this.
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