Barkskins: Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017 - Softcover

An Amazon Best Book of June 2016: Annie Proulx’s Barkskins is an epic, multigenerational novel of dynasty building and, ultimately, ecological and cultural destruction. The novel is as masterful as anything she has written. Beginning in the 1600s, the book tracks the lineage of two French immigrants, Charles Duquet and Rene Sel, who arrive in the Canadian region of New France looking for a better life. Sel marries a Mi’kmaq woman and they have children. Duquet founds the beginnings of a vast timber empire. The book follows generations of Sels and Dukes (nee Duquets), eventually concluding in 2013. The vast forests of North America are the key to both families’ futures, and the forest itself becomes a character in the novel, bringing wealth, taking lives, and slowly dwindling. While the book’s length and character count require much from the reader, it remains taut and compelling throughout. This is not a book for the 140 character-based reader. It’s a book lover’s book. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review

Annie Proulx is the author of eight books, including the novel The Shipping News and the story collection Close Range. Her many honours include a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and a PEN/Faulkner award. Her story "Brokeback Mountain," which originally appeared in The New Yorker, was made into an Academy Award-winning film. She lives in Seattle.