veronicafrance 's review for:

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
5.0

Constant recommendations eventually wore me down, and I bought this to take on holiday. A strange experience reading about Newfoundland winters while lounging under the tropical sun on a Tahitian beach. At first, I thought I wouldn't like it. Here's a sample from page one:
Hive-spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramp, he survived childhood; at the state university, hand clapped over his chin, he camouflaged torment with smiles and silence ... He ate prodigiously, liked a ham knuckle, buttered spuds.

It's all like that, even the dialogue -- excessively showy, I thought. But gradually Proulx wins you over with her lyrical story of how misfit Quoyle is transplanted from New York to find his roots as a journalist on a local rag, The Gammy Bird, in rural Newfoundland, and eventually achieve epiphany. Well worth reading, although I dread to think what Hollywood has turned it into.