Published in 1993, The Shipping News is a novel written by Annie Proulx. The protagonist, Quoyle, works in New York as a newspaper pressroom staffer, but soon after both his parents committed suicide together, Quoyle’s life quickly falls apart. Quoyle’s aunt, Agnis Hamm, persuades him to move back to Newfoundland, where his father was originally from, to make a new beginning and move away from the mess of his life in New York, as Proulx experiments with writing happy endings, not based on real excitement and joy but only on the absence of trauma.
In 1988, Annie Proulx visited the Great Peninsula, and she was completely fascinated by the lifestyles of the families who lived in Newfoundland and returned to the area nine times. In the area, as the cultures intermix and old meets new, Proulx found inspiration to write the novel The Shipping News.
