Book 7 is The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. This is the first novel of her's that I've read, previously I've only been exposed to her short stories, and this only came about because I loved Brokeback Mountain so much, which was in her Close Range collection of short stories. So, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from a full-length novel of hers.

The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994, so obviously some people thought it was a good book. And they are right, for I did enjoy it. I've often thought Proulx to be an American version of Alice Munro, another author whose short stories I really enjoy. Both are excellent at conveying a very set time and space, both portray small town life and all the quirks of character and life that go with it, and both have an... off-kilter style of writing that can sometimes leave you feeling... almost uncomfortable. But anyway, I bring Alice Munro up here as a comparison simply because she sets her stories in small town Canada (usually Ontario), whereas most of Proulx's stories I've read use Wyoming as a backdrop. But with the Shipping News, Proulx journeys to Canada as well.

The novel is set (mostly) in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. It is very much a 'fish out of water' tale, the main character, a rather pathetic individual named Quoyle, is taken advantage by pretty much everyone in his life. He doesn't have the best relationship with his family (his parents don't seem to really support him much, and the brother sounds abusive in that way siblings can be), he is repeatedly hired and fired from his job at a local newspaper, and his wife makes no secret of cheating on him and basically abandoning him to look after their two little girls, whom Quoyle dotes on. Problem is, he also dotes on his nasty wife, whom he always thinks will calm down and return the burning love he has for her. It's all quite sad really.

But Quoyle's life begins to change when his parents participate in a sucide pact (father loses his job and they have no savings), his horrible wife dies in a car accident (after kidnapping the two girls and selling them to a pedophile for a few grand) and Quoyle's tough old bird aunt arrives in his life and convinces him to accompany her to their family's ancestral home in Newfoundland. Acquring a job there in record time and realizing that there is nothing for him in the States, he agrees.

Slowly but surely, Quoyle does put his life together. He becomes good at his job (writing the Shipping News column for the local paper), his parenting skills are actually quite good, he is accepted by the town (he actually has a group of friends) and he slowly, but surely finds love with townie Wavey, whose treatment by her husband sounds rather reminiscent of Quoyle's treatment by his wife.

Proulx does a great job of portraying Newfoundland. She doesn't shy away from the social problems of living there, the lack of jobs due to government mishandling of our fisheries resources, the sexual abuse (this story was written not long after the Mount Cashel Orphanage story was already well known across Canada) and just the hardships associated with living on the Rock.

It's a hard place to live all right, constant storms, not a lot of arrable land, the fish stock so many of them depended upon pretty much depleted, and it would be easy to see that these people might be depressed or hopeless, but they're not. They're resourceful and they're pretty darn happy overall, and pretty fiercly devoted to their way of life. Its not a stubborn devotion either, but one fueled by love.

This book actually has a happy ending. Which kinda suprised me as so mahy of Proulx's short stories, well, they end badly. But here, things started badly and ended well, with a lot of weirdness on the way.