This is story of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime on the run from a crime so terrible that it renders him forever incapable of touching a woman. The odyssey begins on a freezing Vermont hillside in 1944 and propels Blood across the American West for forty years. Denied love and unable to settle, he lives a hundred different lives: mining gold, growing beans, hunting fossils, trapping, prospecting for uranium and ranching. His only contact with his past is through a series of postcards he sends home - not realising that in his absence disaster has befallen his family, and their deep-rooted connection with the land has been severed with devastating consequences...'Postcards' was Annie Proulx's first novel, which received huge acclaim and marked the launch of an outstanding literary career. Her works include short story collections 'Bad Dirt', 'Close Range' (featuring 'Brokeback Mountain') and novels such as 'The Shipping News' and 'Accordion Crimes'.