Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family.Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a “head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair…features as bunched as kissed fingertips,” is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just … wife meets her just desserts. An aunt convinces Quoyle and his two emotionally disturbed daughters to return with her to the starkly beautiful coastal landscape of their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Here, on desolate Quoyle’s Point, in a house empty except for a few mementos of the family’s unsavory past, the battered members of three generations try to cobble up new lives.
Newfoundland is a country of coast and cove where the mercury rarely rises above seventy degrees, the local culinary delicacy is cod cheeks, and it’s easier to travel by boat and snowmobile than on anything with wheels. In this harsh place of cruel storms, a collapsing fishery, and chronic unemployment, the aunt sets up as a yacht upholsterer in nearby Killick-Claw, and Quoyle finds a job reporting the shipping news for the local weekly, the Gammy Bird (a paper that specializes in sexual-abuse stories and grisly photos of car accidents).
As the long winter closes its jaws of ice, each of the Quoyles confronts private demons, reels from catastrophe to minor triumph—in the company of the obsequious Mavis Bangs; Diddy Shovel the strongman; drowned Herald Prowse; cane-twirling Beety; Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio; a demented cousin the aunt refuses to recognize; the much-zippered Alvin Yark; silent Wavey; and old Billy Pretty, with his bag of secrets. By the time of the spring storms Quoyle has learned how to gut cod, to escape from a pickle jar, and to tie a true lover’s knot.
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I loved the characters and the setting of the book, but I especially loved Annie Proulx’s writing. She has such a way with words! This is a must read.
I can certainly appreciate anyone who rewrites a language to fit her own style. Proulx is a steward of the finer craft, forcing us to choose whether we should continue on with a story that is of no interest, or shelve a book that’s so beautifully written. I opted to finish the novel, if for nothing else, to see something beautiful… and I did. …
One of those great stories that I didn’t want to end. Funny and tragic plot, beautiful but harsh setting, and just wonderful characters. Reading this book was a complete comfort.
The way Proulx’s incredible novel depicts Newfoundland is one of the most evocative things I have ever read. She describes a harsh place that nonetheless possesses its own brand of magic, from icebergs floating casually in the
bay to a house that disappears in a storm to the only place that could bring redemption to a seemingly cursed man.
I’ll always keep a copy in my library! I wish the author would write a sequel. Simply outstanding!
It’s been too long ago. I do know I loved it!
Unusual and delightful.
I thought the book started slow and I had a hard time believing his relationship with his first wife. She was way over the top. But as the book progressed, it pulled me in. I now know why it was a Pulitzer Prize winner.
haven’t finished it.
This was the first one of her books I read and my favorite. Great read!
I enjoy Annie’s books, she always has wonderful characters and her books her books are always interesting to read. Her topics and characters are outside of the norm and she almost always puts them in unusual situations. Her books generally have some quirky humor.
One of the best books I have ever read
This is an amazing story of a man who finds himself after a challenging upbringing left him with limited resilience in order to deal with the struggles his life brought. The backdrop was a fishing village in Newfoundland, with unique characters and interesting lifestyles. A very good book!
I wish I had read a page or 2 of this book before ordering it, but did not, and had more trouble getting into the style than I anticipated. The style is almost like an outline; finally gave up after about 20%. It may have improved after that, but I couldn’t keep going, in spite of many good reviews and the author’s reputation.
Excellent writing, use of local language, and depiction of life in a Newfoundland outport where I grew up.
An amazing story of growth and redemption that will have you fall in love with Newfoundland as well as the characters.
This book engaged me from the start. The characters were vivid and real. The rich descriptions of the bleak location and its inhabitants were wonderfully realistic. At once funny and sad, brutal and poetic, I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys great writing with strong story telling and a proper ending that doesn’t leave you thinking, …
Twenty six years after its release and I finally got around to reading The Shipping News.
Was it worth the wait?
It depends.
Part of my resistance to reading it was due to the movie adaptation. I remember seeing the trailer and being annoyed, although for what exact reason I can’t recall.
Proulx’s writing style in this book didn’t annoy me …
“The Shipping News” is E. Annie Proulx’s second novel, published back in 1993. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She has a unique voice and her command of language is impressive. The strength of this book is her prose and strong sense of place. She writes in short staccato sentences, sometimes even using incomplete …
Every few years, I re-read Annie Proulx’s classic novel, The Shipping News. It happens when I miss the East—family and friends. When I need to submerge myself in great writing and crave a dose of mellifluent literature. When I need to feel immersed in the sea and small town camaraderie. But, just what makes this book so endearing? What thrills and …