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Quoyle's own eyes roved to a water-stained engraving on the wall. He saw a grainy face, eyes like glass eggs, a fringe of hairs rising from under the collar and cascading over its starched rim. Was it Punch's grandfather in the chipped frame? He wondered about ancestors. When winter arrives, the aunt and Quoyle and the children move out of the family house. The aunt after receiving money in the mail from Silver Melville, finds a job upholstering in St. John's and moves there just for the winter. Meanwhile, Nutbeem decides he will head out of Newfoundland. At a good-bye party, the men get so rowdy that they destroy Nutbeem's boat. Nutbeem decides he will go to Brazil instead. The ghost of his wife, "Petal's essence riding under his skin like an injected vaccine against the plague of love" Partridge knew why. Talked Quoyle into putting on a huge apron, gave him a spoon and a jar. "His kids home from college. They got your job. Nothing to cry over. That's right, spread that mustard on the meat, let it work in."

Newfoundland is more than the setting for this story, it is a dreary yet engaging character onto itself. Does the cold weather and the rough life add to your enjoyment of the book?This is one of the very best novels I've had the chance to read. It's not just that the story is rich in and of itself - and it is - it's that the words themselves are so artfully assembed that they provide layers of undercurrents that add depth and emotion to the narrative. This book reads like a symphony, with many intertwined themes and narratives all woven together into a whole, unified picture. Aspects of the town and its characters remind me of David Lynch's 1980s TV series "Twin Peaks": strange characters, often with impairments of mind, body or emotions, slightly strange names, odd superstitions, and dark secrets (murder, incest, rape, insurance fraud).

This was one of the first twenty books I added to my to-read shelf here on Goodreads nearly eight years ago. Along the way, I somehow acquired not just one but two copies of this Pulitzer prize winning novel. Either my memory of what I own failed me, or I really wanted to read this. In any case, it was high time I grabbed one of those copies from my bookshelf! Besides, it’s so well loved, I was sure to be wild about it as well. I’m sorry to say that something went wrong here, friends. While I did respect Proulx’s work, I’m not able to write a gushing review of it! I’m kind of stumped to explain exactly what happened. Nothing was clear to lonesome Quoyle. His thoughts churned like the amorphous thing that ancient sailors, drifting into arctic half-light, called the Sea Lung; a heaving sludge of ice under fog where air blurred into water, where liquid was solid, where solids dissolved, where the sky froze and light and dark muddled.Proulx tells us the aunt is a lesbian, yet never makes a specific issue out of the aunt's sexual orientation. Does this fact add dimension to the story for you? Does it add to the aunt's character? We, as readers, assume that characters are heterosexual without needing to hear specifically about their sexual life. Does the matter-of-course way Proulx treats the aunt's sexuality help make the reader a less judgmental critic? This story on the County Mutual Aid Transportation meeting? A month ago they were ready to start van service in four towns if Bugle Hollow came in. You say here that they met last night, then, way down at the end you mention sort of as a minor detail, that Bugle Hollow decided not to join. You know how many old people, no cars, people can't afford a car or a second car, commuters, been waiting for that goddamn van to pull up? Now it's not going to happen. News, Quoyle, news. Better get your mojo working." A minute later added in a different voice that he was doing Greek-style marinated fish and red peppers on skewers Friday night and did Quoyle want to come over? Some anomalous gene had fired up at the moment of his begetting as a single spark sometimes leaps from banked coals, had given him a giant's chin. As a child he invented stratagems to deflect stares; a smile, downcast gaze, the right hand darting up to cover the chin. On the horizon icebergs like white prisons. The immense blue fabric of the sea, rumpled and creased."

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