In these ten stories, Richard Ford mines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West—and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there. Rock Springs is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiseled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace.

Meet a refugee from justice driving across Wyoming with his daughter and girlfriend in a stolen Mercedes; a boy watching his family dissolve in a night of tragicomic violence; and two men and a woman swapping hard-luck stories in a frontier bar as they try to sweeten their luck.

In the tradition of Raymond Carver, Rock Springs achieves luminous moments, moments with potential to change how the reader sees and thinks.

Fine Just the Way It Is returns readers to the evocative landscapes of Wyoming. This collection of stories captures the essence of the American frontier, where generations have struggled and endured.

Every ranch had lost a boy, reflects Dakotah Hicks, as she journeys through the hammered red landscape of Wyoming. Boys, smiling and confident in their risks, were tipped out of life's current by liquor, rodeo mishaps, and 'unloaded' guns. Her boy was among them, and this trip is a solemn roll call of grief.

In these tales, cowboys just out of adolescence, ranch women, and old pioneers show a resilience tinged with pride and defiance. Annie Proulx, known for works like "Brokeback Mountain," delivers a poignant collection that portrays the harsh realities and transformations in Wyoming.