The Shipping News was published in 1993 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994. This was a somewhat compelling novel as the story revolves around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from New York. Quoyle's story is filled with tragedy. His philandering wife is killed in a car accident leaving him with his two daughters, Bunny and Sunshine, who he has to rescue from a man who bought the two girls from his wife. Quoyle's father had immigrated from Newfoundland and with little prospects in New York, his paternal aunt, Agnis Hamm, convinces him to make a new beginning by returning to their ancestral home there. There, they move into Agnis's childhood home, an empty and abandoned house on Quoyle's Point. Quoyle finds work as a reporter for the Gammy Bird, the local newspaper in Killick-Claw, a small town. The editor asks him to cover traffic accidents and also the shipping news, documenting the arrivals and departures of ships from the local port. His reporting develops as Quoyle's signature column. Quoyle experiences the hardships of living in the bleak and frozen land of Newfoundland. He finds out secrets about his ancestors, makes friends with the locals as he builds a new life in Newfoundland.
Overall, I did enjoy this novel and its look at the people and place of Newfoundland. It tells of the fishing community and how the fisheries have almost disappeared. Many tragedies happen through the years including the drowning deaths of family members close to Quoyle. The novel is also full of humor and very colorful characters. The names of people and places were also very unusual and colorful including the towns of Killick-Claw and Four Hands Cove and the characters Nutbeem, Tert Card, and Wavey. However, Proulx's writing style was a little hard to read sometimes with many fragmented sentences among her descriptions. There is also a 2001 movie adaptation of this starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, and Judi Dench that I'll be on the lookout for.
Overall, I did enjoy this novel and its look at the people and place of Newfoundland. It tells of the fishing community and how the fisheries have almost disappeared. Many tragedies happen through the years including the drowning deaths of family members close to Quoyle. The novel is also full of humor and very colorful characters. The names of people and places were also very unusual and colorful including the towns of Killick-Claw and Four Hands Cove and the characters Nutbeem, Tert Card, and Wavey. However, Proulx's writing style was a little hard to read sometimes with many fragmented sentences among her descriptions. There is also a 2001 movie adaptation of this starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, and Judi Dench that I'll be on the lookout for.
