An Interview with Annie Proulx

The archetype of the mysterious author is an obsession of the American psyche. Inaccessibility heightens fascination, to the point that the Recluse of American Letters is the most stylish occupation one can have. Annie Proulx is known for writing the short story “Brokeback Mountain” and the Pulitzer-winning novel The Shipping News, but she is also known for being notoriously hard to reach. A writer for the Paris Review in 2009 quoted her as saying “I loathe interviews and getting me to sit still for a whole day is unprecedented.” In an interview with The Atlantic in 1997 Proulx described the interruption posed by media attention as intolerable. “Most [journalists] don’t particularly care about your writing,” she said. As a writer with intense interest in both journalism and Proulx, this was a barb to my heart, because I care deeply about her writing. The world, it seems to me, needs her and her work.