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Accordion Crimes

By Annie Proulx

(6)

| Hardcover | 9780684195483

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Book Description

Accordion Crimes traces the long odyssey of a button accordion, an instrument made by a Sicilian who immigrates to New Orleans in 1891. Imprisoned in a round-up of Italian suspects after the political murder of the chief of police, the accordion maker is lynched, and his accordion fallContinue

Accordion Crimes traces the long odyssey of a button accordion, an instrument made by a Sicilian who immigrates to New Orleans in 1891. Imprisoned in a round-up of Italian suspects after the political murder of the chief of police, the accordion maker is lynched, and his accordion falls into the hands of Apollo, a black steamboat screwman. The instrument begins its long, erratic voyage through 20th-century America, passing through the hands of the descendants of slaves, immigrants and their children, some of whom learn that the cost of becoming American is to surrender the private definition of self.

Accordion Crimes is alive with vividly drawn characters who sometimes meet violent, strange ends, and who, at other times, succeed in a hard world. Filled with indelible images, Proulx's latest novel is charged with sardonic wit and is, at different turns, darkly hilarious and heartbreakingly sad. What we see as the accordion weakens and disintegrates is a haunting and ominous sense of what is America.

Critics

  • Accordion Crimes

    Accordion Crimes E. Annie Proulx Paperback Scribner 432 pages June 1997 E. Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes traces the origins of the United States through the narratives of a series of families, whose stories are all bound together by a green button ... (read full critics)

    curledup published on Tue, 7 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

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  • Accordion Crimes

    A wide variety of intriguing American stories all tied together by a small green accordion.

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    Readingrat said on Apr 9, 2009 | Add your feedback

  • I actually preferred this to the better known Shipping News etc. The unconventional approach of linking the stories by the descent of the accordion through families means you get the brilliant explication of characters and relationships but not the melodrama.

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    huntch said on Apr 4, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
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  • English Books
  • Hardcover 384 Pages
  • ISBN-10: 0684195488
  • ISBN-13: 9780684195483
  • Publisher: Scribner
  • Pub date: Jun 19, 1996
  • Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Paperback and Audio Cassette
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9780684195483 Hardcover $25.00 -- The Book Depository
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