Rating: 4.0What it's about:
When Quoyle's two-timing wife meets her just desserts, he retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters and family members all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As Quoyle confronts his private demons -- and the unpredictable forces of nature and society -- he begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family, The Shipping News shows why Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.My thoughts:
The Shipping News takes place on the unyielding yet beautiful Newfoundland coast. It is a story of the land, the sea and ultimately the heart. It is the story of Quoyle. Him and his two young daughters flee from the states to their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Quoyle lands a job at the local paper writing about car accidents and the shipping news. It doesn't matter that Quoyle's wife recently died in a car accident or that Quoyle knows nothing about boats or shipping. This book follows Quoyle and his struggle to find his place in the world and maybe a little bit of happiness. The Shipping News is full of quirky characters. The writing is delightfully original. Proulx is clearly an author worth checking out.
*The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994
