Annie Proulx's first novel uses the vehicle of postcards, often from the main character Loyal Blood, to introduce most chapters. What is striking about the cards is there is never a return address, with Loyal cutting himself off from contact from his family, but still wanting to let them know his whereabouts (with a rack of stolen bear postcards). I was hoping for some return, or public discovery of the event that precipitated Loyals exodus. The descriptions of mining and archeology in the west were perhaps the best, but the writing of the farm in Vermont did not reveal as strong feeling of place. The writing in sometimes very lyrical for example ".. her own house showed up as a slatternly lean of paintless clapboards, the porch slipping away like melting butterscotch". The vignettes almost read more like loosely connected short stories, than a novel. The male characters seem most developed, with the women offering less. Readers of this may enjoy Robert Olen Butler's upcoming book " Had a Good Time : Stories from American Postcards " which has fictional short stories focused around an actual postcard