“All must pay the debt of nature.” Annie Proulx’s work up to now has been many things, some of them seemingly contradictory: terse, blunt, sharp, distant, poignant, violent, humane, and more. With Barkskins she claims an entirely new term for her collection: sprawling. Clocking in at more than 700 pages, Barkskins begins with the stories of René … More Barkskins, by Annie Proulx: Book Review