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Accordion Crimes
 
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Accordion Crimes (Paperback)

by Annie Proulx (Author)
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Accordion Crimes + That Old Ace in the Hole + Postcards
Price For All Three: £17.92

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  • This item: Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx

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    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx

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  • Postcards by Annie Proulx

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Product details

  • Paperback: 544 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd; New edition edition (5 Jun 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 185702575X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1857025750
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 64,562 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

`The melting Post of 20th-century America comes to life in her hands' Waterstones Books Quarterly
-- WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY


Product Description

The third novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Shipping News', 'Accordion Crimes' spans generations, continents and a century and confirms the hallucinatory power of Proulx's writing. 'Accordion Crimes' is a masterpiece of story-telling that spans a century and a continent. It opens in 1890 in Sicily, when an accordion-maker and his son, carrying little more than his finest button accordion, begin their voyage to the teeming, violent port of New Orleans. Within a year, the accordion-maker is murdered by an anti-Italian lynch mob, but his instrument carries the novel into another community of immigrants: German-Americans founding a new town in South Dakota. Moving from South Dakota to Texas, from Montana to Maine, the nine instantly compelling and intricately connected sections of the novel illuminate the lives of the founders of a nation, descendants of Mexicans, Poles, Germans, Irish, Scots and Franco-Canadians. Through the music of the accordion they express their fantasies, sorrows and exuberance.
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Accordion Crimes
74% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

27 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (7)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars ...or around the USA in 100 years, 5 Dec 2002
By A Customer
I loved this book - in fact I can't remember having read a better one for years.
On the surface, it's the story of an accordian, from it's manufacture by the first owner and then through the lives of consequent owners. As a musician I related to the perceptive descriptions of the players of the instrument and all the other characters - of which there are many!
But the theme is of immigration to the United States, and the often tough lives of those who moved there from diverse countries and cultures. The accordian is seen as an old-fashioned instrument, much like the traditions and cultures the immigrants have left behind, and the pressure (for most characters in the book) is to conform, give up tradition, their old languages and their old music and become 'true' Americans.

Darkly humourous, funny yet tragic, this deep novel takes us through the 20th century (never too specific on date) with great historical detail and reads like a linked collection of short stories. I recommend it.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Up there with the Shipping News, 11 Jun 1999
By A Customer
A damn fine book in the tradition familiar to Proulx's readers. Overall perhaps not as complete an achievement as "The Shipping News" but sections of the book read as well as anything she has written prviously. The story follows the progress of a green accordion as it passes through the hands of owners from a variety of national origins and classes. In this way Proulx tells the story of the development of the United States and its immigrants from the 19th centuary to neasr the present day. The accordion interweaves the stories of the characters and provides a thread to the narative. A book of haunting images.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Weird Wonderful & Hugely entertaining., 14 Oct 2001
Could be retitled a million ways to kick the bucket!
Has any book ever described more (strange & crazy) ways to leave this earth than this superb novel?
It reads like a Tarantino film but with greater humour & a real insight into the life and times of some of the greatest accordian players who've ever graced this planet!
... Read it you will not be disappointed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Downright difficult!
I was looking forward to this having loved both 'The Shipping News' and 'That Old Ace in the Hole', but I have to say, I really struggled with it from beginning to end. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Outsider

4.0 out of 5 stars History of America through the eyes of a green accordian
This is a great book. Annie Proulx absorbs and describes detail like no one else, sometimes to a level that makes the reader cringe with the realism, often tinged with black... Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2004

2.0 out of 5 stars A Polyglot of Characters Looking for a Plot
As a great fan of Proulx's 'The Shipping News', I looked forward to reading 'Accordion Crimes',. Somehow this convoluted tale of the accordion's progress seems contrived. Read more
Published on 17 Jul 2003 by A. C. SEARLE

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring and frustrating
The premise sounded interesting: following the accordian through a series of owners from all walks of life. But the characters were extremely uninteresting. Read more
Published on 3 Aug 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A complex and beautiful celebration of diversity.
This novel is certainly not an easy read, but I think those who shrug it off as depressing and dreary are really missing a great deal of the meaining it has to offer. Read more
Published on 20 Jul 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars Interminable
I have been reading this book for months, am almost done with it, and I still don't know if I'll ever finish it, it is that uninteresting. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars Tedious parade of horribles
A disappoininting, depressing book, chock full of every imaginable form of death and dismemberment. Proulx's fascination with the grotesque is numbing at first, but by book's... Read more
Published on 9 Jun 1999

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to hell, here's your accordion...
You may be pleased to find out that the history, design and construction of accordions is not explored in great detail. Read more
Published on 7 Jun 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book!!
One of those books which means life becomes an annoying interruption. This book was picked following my friend and I sitting on the floor for an hour, hung over and scraffly, and... Read more
Published on 8 Mar 1999

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book- held my attention
I enjoyed this book, but after reading The Shipping News, I found the same themes, and similar characters appearing. Read more
Published on 19 Feb 1999

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