She often doesn’t use traditional sentence structure. However, her writing style is unique and it was distracting at first.

I also like that she uses obscure words that my Kindle Reader dictionary didn’t recognize – ruvid, sumpy, roky, peckled, and craquelured, for example. And her ability to develop characters is superb. She also makes Newfoundland come alive with her descriptions of the weather and the sea. Annie Proulx is a fantastic storyteller and she was able to showcase this skill with the stories other characters share with Quoyle (remember, he’s a good listener and people tell him everything). He even finds love, once he figures out love isn’t supposed to be painful and obsessive. Everyone begins to thrive, especially Quoyle, who turns out to be capable and multidimensional. Quoyle and his family find acceptance and friendship in their new home. He really hits his stride while telling stories of unique ships and their crews. Quoyle is assigned to cover car crashes and news of which ships are in port. The Gammy Bird is staffed with misfits (Quoyle found his people!) who produce a paper with strong tabloid tendencies. Surprisingly, he’s able to land a job at the local weekly newspaper, the Grammy Bird, so they head north to start their new lives. Quoyle’s redemption begins when his aunt suggests Quoyle and his two daughters move back to the long-abandoned family home in Newfoundland.

Under normal circumstances, I may have quit reading the book early on, but felt compelled by the reading challenge to soldier on. In retrospect, I see that the author represented him this way so that his eventual transformation would be more obvious and powerful. Quoyle is portrayed as little more than a sluggish, simple-minded animal – maybe a walrus or a manatee. That’s why I didn’t care for the first part of the book. Quoyle’s devotion to them is the first real sign there is more to Quoyle than a huge chin and a hulking body. The marriage ends catastrophically, but it produced two good things – Quoyle’s daughters, Bunny and Sunshine. Although he isn’t a very successful journalist, he does have one gift – people openly tell their stories to him because he’s a good listener.Īlso in the early part of the book, Quoyle stumbles into marriage with Petal, a lousy, no-good cheat who breaks Quoyle’s heart. While living in New York, he stumbles into an on-again-off-again newspaper job. He was brought up to think he was worthless and lived the first part of his life living up to these low expectations. The novel begins with discouraging scenes about our hero, Quoyle.

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