Annie Proulx

So there he was, fifty-one years old and in North Dakota. The farm a curve of earth, a slat-sided house leaning into the Wind, starved fields among the ranches and sugar beet farms. Why the hell was he buying this, he wondered, even as he pushed the bank check at the vulture-wattled man in the sheepskin coat. Imprisoned in his mind, like an iridescent beetle in a matchbox, was the image of his slanting field crowned by scribbled maples, not this bony square of dirt. He didn't even know what he wanted to do with it.