The Shipping News (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Annie Proulx
- First Published: 1993
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The early 1990’s
- Setting: Mockingburg, Upstate New York; and Killick-Claw, Newfoundland, Canada
- Principal Characters: R. G. Quoyle, Petal Bear, Sunshine, Agnis Ramm, Wayey Prowse, Jack Buggit, Dennis and Beety Buggit, Billy Pretty, Beaufield Nutbeem, Tert Card
- Genres: Long fiction, Magical Realism
- Subjects: Canada or Canadians, Small-town life, Adventure, Peace, Resurrection
- Locales: Newfoundland, Canada
R. G. Quoyle, like his namesake, a flat coil of rope, begins without character enough to stand up to anything. A prodigious eater and great mound of self-conscious fat, he has oozed from job to job, friendless and depressed, always holding his hand over his great ledge of a chin. Reared by a father who always preferred his older son, Quoyle lacks sufficient self-esteem at thirty-six to succeed at anything.
Things begin to happen only when he meets a newspaper editor named Partridge, who gives him a job. Halfheartedly following this new trade, he meets Petal Bear, an erotic...
[The entire page is 2334 words long]
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