The Shipping News

The Shipping News tells the story of Qouyle, a middle-aged-newspaper worker from New York City, and his struggle to find himself, his family, and love.

After his parents commit suicide and his abusive wife Petal leaves him Qouyle sells his daughters to a black market adoption agency for $6,000. When Petal is killed in a car accident the police bring his daughters back, but his life is collapsing due to economic and social changes.

At the urging of his Aunt Agnis Hamm he and his daughters move to Quoyle's Point in Newfoundland. While working for the Gammy Bird newspaper his editor asks him to report on the local shipping news. He slowly makes friends and begins a relationship with Wavey, but his confidence and happiness are threatened by the dark secrets he learns about his family history.

In the book’s acknowledgments, Annie Proulx credits Clifford W. Ashley's wonderful 1944 work, The Ashley Book of Knots. Proulx used Ashley’s illustrations and quotes as introductions to each chapter in the book. Quoyle means a coil of rope.

1. "In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible... Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result." — E. Annie Proulx
2. "Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery." — E. Annie Proulx

The Shipping News tells the story of Qouyle, a middle-aged-newspaper worker from New York City, and his struggle to find himself, his family, and love.

</small> After his parents commit suicide and his abusive wife Petal leaves him Qouyle sells his daughters to a black market adoption agency for $6,000. When Petal is killed in a car accident the police bring his daughters back, but his life is collapsing due to economic and social changes.

At the urging of his Aunt Agnis Hamm he and his daughters move to Quoyle's Point in Newfoundland. While working for the Gammy Bird newspaper his editor asks him to report on the local shipping news. He slowly makes friends and begins a relationship with Wavey, but his confidence and happiness are threatened by the dark secrets he learns about his family history.

</small> In the book’s acknowledgments, Annie Proulx credits Clifford W. Ashley's wonderful 1944 work, The Ashley Book of Knots. Proulx used Ashley’s illustrations and quotes as introductions to each chapter in the book. Quoyle means a coil of rope.

1. Author E, Annie Proulx

2. Published in 1993

3. Published by Simon and Schuster

4. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

5. Won the National Book Award

6. Set in Newfoundland during the late twentieth-century

7. Major symbol is knot tying

8. Major theme is social and economic change

9. Adapted into a film in 2001

1. "In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible... Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result." — E. Annie Proulx

2. "Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery." — E. Annie Proulx

3. </note>