It's not easy their house, perched grimly on a rock, is uninhabitable in winter, "mean and hopeless" year-round. Then Petal is killed in a car accident, and Quoyle's Aunt Agnis, who has all the gumption her lummox of a nephew lacks, moves the family to their ancestral home in Newfoundland to start a new life. Front and center is Quoyle, an unprepossessing hulk with a "monstrous chin," who goes from a loveless childhood in upstate New York to a half-loveless marriage to Petal Bear, a sharp-tongued bimbo who gives him two daughters (Bunny and Sunshine) and six years of suffering that Quoyle (still hopelessly smitten) gladly absorbs, not knowing that life can offer anything else. Life was hard for Proulx's people in Heart Songs (1988) and Postcards (1991), and it's no easier for them in this dreary second novel, as they battle the elements (and their private demons) in Newfoundland.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |