The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Annie Proulx is one of America's best living writers. I prefer her short stories, namely the three editions of Wyoming Stories which are a must read. These are amazing stories of stark living on the harsh plain that is the true American west. I remember reading a couple of these stories a night and each having it's own interesting twist, when all of a sudden there was one that went to a whole new level. This story was eventually turned into the successful movie Brokeback Mountain. It was a shocker and really stuck in your mind.

Quoyle, the main character in The Shipping News, is quite the opposite. He is a very forgettable sad sack, with a terrible life and a equally bad family. But the novel is much more than Quoyle's story: it is a moving evocation of a place and people buffeted by nature and change. Like Wyoming, Killick-Claw, a Newfoundland harbor town, is a harsh place. Unlike Brokeback Mountain, The Shipping News, did not make a great movie. It was too dark and slow for my taste, but the book is much more involving and will hopefully get you started on reading all Proulx's books.