That Old Ace in the Hole
{{Short description|2002 novel by Annie Proulx}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book |
| name = That Old Ace in the Hole
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = FourthEstate 2002 AnnieProulx ThatOldAceintheHole.jpg
| caption = First edition cover
| author = Annie Proulx
| cover_artist =
| country = United States
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Novel
| publisher = 4th Estate
| release_date = 2002
| media_type = Print (hardback & paperback)
| pages = 359 pp
| isbn = 0-00-715152-7
| dewey=
| congress=
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| preceded_by =
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}}
That Old Ace in the Hole is a 2002 novel by Annie Proulx.{{cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/20/1040174387928.html|title=That Old Ace In The Hole|last=Delia Falconer|author-link=Delia Falconer|date=2002-12-21|publisher=Sydney Morning Herald|access-date=2009-11-15}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/books/the-news-from-woolybucket.html|title=The News From Woolybucket|last=Miller|first=Laura|date=2002-12-15|work=The New York Times|access-date=2009-11-15}}{{cite news|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200301130042|title=Seduced by a panhandle. A N Wilson acclaims a contemporary Dickens|last=A. N. Wilson|author-link=A. N. Wilson|date=2003-01-13|publisher=New Statesman|access-date=2009-11-15}}
Plot
Bob Dollar was abandoned by his parents and was brought up by his eccentric uncle.{{cite news |last1=Katherine A. Powers |author-link=Katherine A. Powers |title=Hog Wild |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2003/01/19/hog-wild/62594b1b-0d71-49fc-b560-618d937db3d3/?noredirect=on |access-date=13 March 2019 |work=The Washington Post |date=19 January 2003}} Dollar is sent by his employer, the multinational "Global Pork Rind Corporation", to scout for locations for intensive hog farming in the Texas Panhandle. Dollar goes about the work of meeting local down-on-their-luck farmers to manipulate them into selling out. He bases his search in the fictional town of Woolybucket, named after the real tree species, Sideroxylon lanuginosum.
There he gets a job at Woolybucket's Old Dog restaurant, and moves into an old bunkhouse in local historian LaVon Fronk's ranch. The inhabitants of the town and the region's quirkiness and stubbornness work on the fundamentally decent Dollar. The ace in the hole of the title is Ace Crouch, who quietly leads Dollar to a "kind of small, quiet and personal redemption."
Critical reception
Writing in The Observer, Adam Mars-Jones described the book as "richer in wishful thinking than in the hard knowledge that the author has so patiently acquired."{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/05/fiction.features4|title=With a wealth of detail and a host of absurdly named characters, Annie Proulx struggles with her research in That Old Ace in the Hole|last=Adam Mars-Jones|author-link=Adam Mars-Jones|date= 5 January 2003|work=The Observer|publisher=Guardian Media Group|access-date=29 November 2014}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Books by Annie Proulx}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:That Old Ace In The Hole}}