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The Shipping News: A Novel by Annie Proulx
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The Shipping News: A Novel (original 1993; edition 2002)

by Annie Proulx (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
13,370247447 (3.87)659
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 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.… (more)
Member:MHanover10
Title:The Shipping News: A Novel
Authors:Annie Proulx (Author)
Info:Scribner (2001), 352 pages
Collections:Your library, Currently reading, Wishlist, To read, Read but unowned, Favorites
Rating:***
Tags:None

Work Information

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1993)

  1. 20
    Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (sturlington)
    sturlington: Small-town island settings.
  2. 10
    The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (sturlington)
  3. 01
    The Custodian of Paradise by Wayne Johnston (sushidog)
  4. 01
    The Republic of Nothing by Lesley Choyce (ShelfMonkey)
  5. 12
    The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald (rieja)
  6. 01
    Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald (rieja)
  7. 01
    We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen (Jannes)
    Jannes: Proulx focuses on one particular and personal fate, Jensen writes about a whole town in the voice of a vague, collective "we". The former places her story in modern-day Newfoundland, the later in 19th and early 20th century Denmark. What they have in common is the ever-present sea, its influence and demands, and how the people that relies on if for sustenance has learned to accept its whims and live with the consequences of a life at sea.… (more)
  8. 02
    Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad (Othemts)
  9. 15
    A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (sombrio)
AP Lit (8)
1990s (56)
Canada (12)
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» See also 659 mentions

English (234)  Dutch (4)  Spanish (3)  French (1)  Italian (1)  German (1)  Hebrew (1)  Finnish (1)  All languages (246)
Showing 1-5 of 234 (next | show all)
A slow-burner that rewards those that stick with it. There's no real plot here, just a year or so with a rudderless man who has been kicked by life in general and especially by those who should of loved him.
Quoyle relocates with his daughters to Newfoundland, his ancestral home, after tragedy strikes. With the help of his aunt, fellow reporters at the local newspaper, and the townspeople, Quoyle perhaps finds his place in the world and love that is given back in kind instead of stomped on.
What drives this book is getting to know the small-town people and their struggles as their lives change with the death of the fishing economy. Proulx captures locations and the locals' speech patterns nicely and never presents them as eccentrics, although they certainly are characters.
Poignant, humorous, a lovely book. ( )
  RobertOK | Aug 20, 2023 |
Having read 'Accordion Crimes' years ago, i set Annie as a saved author in my 'Bookbub' account in the hope of getting a cheap copy for my kindle so i could read it again sometime.

But instead of the hoped for 'Accordion Crimes', 'Bookbub' sent me an email for this book instead and i jumped straight onto it in the hope of more of the fantastic writing i had enjoyed so much in 'Accordion Crimes', and i wasn't disappointed.

Once again, Annie's writing and attention to detail is incredible, and she really takes you on the journey of the main protagonist as he settles into his new life in Newfoundland.

One thing this book does do is convinces me that i never, ever, want to go to Newfoundland, and it does make me wonder why Annie would buy a summer house there - possibly for inspiration?

Anyway, if you're looking for a great read you can't really go wrong with Annie Proulx, and i very much look forward to 'Bookbub' sending me some more great offers of her books in the future - i certainly won't hesitate to buy any of them. ( )
  5t4n5 | Aug 9, 2023 |
Amazing.
  kevindern | Apr 27, 2023 |
I'm really not quite sure why exactly this book won so many awards, but if I had to hang it on something, I'm going with the prose. I loved the spare writing style - - reminiscent of Hemingway. It fit the book perfectly and Proulx created terrific imagery with it. I definitely felt transported to Newfoundland.

The other component of the book that I truly enjoyed was Quoyle's transformation from a hapless lug to a loving, caring, much stronger father. The whole evolution of Quoyle was done so subtly and slowly that it felt very true to me. I really grew fond of his character and was cheering him on the whole way.

Unfortunately, the rest of the storytelling left me flat. It felt a little like an elderly relative relating anecdotes from her past about people I don't know. I just didn't care and many passages seemed to just blather on and on without saying a whole lot of anything that was important. And sometimes, later in the book, some of the ramblings did turn out to have a purpose, but I still didn't really care about the purpose or the people. Beyond Quoyle and his immediate family, the rest of the characters just seemed like foils for Quoyle and not really fully blown characters.

The book just never came alive for me, and by the end I felt like I was really trying to just read quickly because I was ready for it to end. Not a good sign. Interestingly, I can't help but compare it to Olive Kitteridge which had a similar dark feeling and a setting that also really was critical and brought to life and was told in a similar anecdotal type style - - but somehow I enjoyed that one significantly more, despite the fact that Quoyle is a more endearing protagonist than Olive.

Oh well.

Initially, I thought it was going to be a four star read, but it definitely ended in the three zone. ( )
  Anita_Pomerantz | Mar 23, 2023 |
Not for me. ( )
  CarolHicksCase | Mar 12, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 234 (next | show all)
It has been – astonishingly – fifteen years since I read the novel but its memory is undimmed, its glorious set pieces still vivid before my eyes.
 
In E. Annie Proulx's vigorous, quirky novel "The Shipping News," set in present-day Newfoundland, there are indeed a lot of drownings. The main characters are plagued by dangerous undercurrents, both in the physical world and in their own minds. But the local color, ribaldry and uncanny sorts of redemption of Ms. Proulx's third book of fiction keep the reader from slipping under, into the murk of loss.
 

» Add other authors (9 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Proulx, E. Annieprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Alopaeus, MarjaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hofmann, MichaelTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Willemse, ReginaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
"In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knit. there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible. . . Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result."

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
Quoyle: A coil of rope

"A Flemish flake is a spiral coil of one layer only. It is made on deck so that it may be walked on if necessary."


THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
In the old days a love-sick sailor might send the object of his affections a length of fishline loosely tied in a true-lover's knot. If the knot as sent back as it came the relationship was static. If the knot returned home snugly drawn up the passion was reciprocated. But if the knot was capsized - tacit advice to ship out.
"The strangle knot will hold a coil well . . . It is first tied loosely and then worked snug."

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Cast Away, to be forced from a ship by a disaster."

THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
Dedication
For Jon, Gillis and Morgan
First words
Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.
Quotations
Walking keeps you smart.
fried bologna isn't bad.
Desire reversed to detestation like a rubber glove turned inside out.
We run a car wreck photo every week, whether we have a car wreck or not. That's our golden rule.
In Wyoming they name girls Skye, in Newfoundland it's Wavey.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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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 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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Book description
From the get-go, Quoyle is a loser. Not only is he physically unattractive with a "great damp loaf of a body," but he is also not too bright. His father despises him, and his brother, constantly taunts him. He drifts from job to job, never able to keep one for more than a few months. He gets married, only to have his wife sell their two daughters to a child pornographer and leave him. The Shipping News describes Quoyle's psychological and spiritual rebirth. Left with two children to raise after he rescues them, and no job, he returns to Newfoundland, the land of his ancestors. A sometime newspaper reporter, he gets a job reporting on shipping news with a local publication, and becomes a minor celebrity. Gradually he is transformed into a loving father and a valued neighbor.
    -----------------------------------


When Quoyle's two-timing wife meets her just deserts, 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.
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