The Shipping News - by Annie Proulx (Paperback)

About the Book

Quoyle 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.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family, and "a rare creation, a lyric page-turner" (Chicago Tribune).

At thirty-six, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman is wrenched violently out of his world when his 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 all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons--and the unpredictable forces of nature and society--and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.

The Shipping News "is charged with sardonic wit--alive, funny, a little threatening: packed with brilliantly original images...and now and then, a sentence that simply takes your breath away" (USA TODAY).

Review Quotes

Bruce Allen USA Today The writing is charged with sardonic wit -- alive, funny, a little threatening; packed with brilliantly original images...and, now and then, a sentence that simply takes your breath away.

Roz Spafford San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle Annie Proulx's stunning, big-hearted The Shipping News thaws the frozen lives of its characters and warms readers.

Stephen Jones Chicago Tribune The Shipping News is that rare creation, a lyric page-turner.

About the Author

Annie Proulx is the author of nine books, including the novels The Shipping News and Barkskins, and the story collection Close Range. Her many honors include a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and a PEN/Faulkner award. Her story "Brokeback Mountain," which originally appeared in The New Yorker, was made into an Academy Award-winning film. Fen, Bog, and Swamp is her second work of nonfiction. She lives in New Hampshire.