mark_b 's review for:

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
4.0

Shipping News won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and I read it based largely on these recommendations. Never saw the 2001 movie. The book is set in a small rural fishing community in Newfoundland, and concerns newly-single dad Quayle. He struggles to cope with multiple challenges: raising two young daughters, starting a new job, moving to a new home in a community where he knows nobody, navigating a new romantic relationship, and discovering disturbing things about his family’s past.

I liked Shipping News. It’s somewhat outside of my normal reading preferences, but Proulx is a great story teller and a fine writer. I’m glad I read it. Highly recommended.