In Postcards Proulx uses a technique similar to that used in The Shipping News. She signals the reader to note the intent of the chapter by opening each with a postcard, pictured and inscribed, just as she opens each chapter in The Shipping News with a quotation from The Ashley Book of Knots as well as the drawing and naming of the knot inscribed. Referred to by some critics as Proulx's double ouevre, both books focus on the chronicling of the protagonist's family, the disintegration of the dysfunctional family unit, the place which produced that family, and the significant changes occurring in that place and how they affect the lives of those living there.

Accordion Crimes (1996) uses another device, an accordion, to tie a fragmented story together. An ambitious Sicilian immigrant in 1890 attempts to bring his family to America, but a series of bizarre ailments kills...