serendipitysbooks 's review for:

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

4.25

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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 The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994. It's the story of Quoyle, a newspaper man from New York, who makes the decision to move back to his family's ancestral home in Newfoundland with his aunt and young daughters following the deaths of his parents and his estranged wife. This book has a quirky cast of characters and a very strong sense of place. The environment was harsh and unforgiving as the sobering number of deaths at sea indicated. Equally sobering was the number of sexual abuse cases reported in the local newspaper and the way in which sexual abuse scarred Quoyle's own family. Balancing this darkness was the undeniable warmth and kindness of the people in Quoyle's immediate neighbourhood and the strong vein of humour that runs through this novel. Themes of family, resilience, and tradition were well explored, the writing was strong, the book had an original feel to it yet remained readable and accessible. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief

Moderate: Pedophilia, Sexual assault