A ‘Reading for Wellbeing’ recommended read!
The shipping news by Annie Proulx
The story centres on Quoyle, a newspaper pressroom worker from upstate New York whose father emigrated from Newfoundland. Shortly after his parents’ suicide, Quoyle’s wife Petal leaves town and attempts to sell their two daughters to sex traffickers. Soon thereafter, Petal and her lover are killed in a car accident; the young girls are located by police and returned to Quoyle.
Despite his daughters’ safe return, Quoyle’s life is collapsing, and his paternal aunt, Agnis Hamm, convinces him to return to Newfoundland for a new beginning. They return to their ancestral home on Quoyle’s Point. He obtains work as a traffic accident reporter for the Gammy Bird, the local newspaper in Killick-Claw, a small town. The Gammy Bird‘s editor also asks him to document the shipping news, arrivals and departures from the local port. Quoyle becomes part of the local community, and discovers secrets of his own past, discovers a new life and also discovers love for the first time in his life.
I loved this book when I read it because it’s dark, but it is positive in the end, the prose is great, the language is rich and the whole tapestry of these imperfect human beings and their lives in this small and slightly weird community is very rich and satisfying. Even the chapters have great titles, based on headings and epigrams from Ashley’s Book of Knots.
