Issue 16: Blueberry cinnamon buns + The Shipping News

Berry and brown sugar-filled cinnamon buns and the story of one man's return to Newfoundland.

Hannah Griffin

Aug 12, 2022

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (1993)

Setting the tone

An Ocean in Between the Waves by The War on Drugs, here

In a nutshell

The Shipping News is Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction following Quoyle, an endearing, bumbling giant of a man living in New York State. His life has been marked by unluckiness and loss, and he feels he can never do anything quite right. After falling hopelessly in love with and marrying his narcissistic wife, Petal, Quoyle’s confidence is ground down as she consistently berates him and sleeps with other men. After Petal meets a tragic end, grieving Quoyle moves with his two young daughters to Killick-Claw, a rural town on the stormy, rocky coast of Newfoundland, a place his ancestors lived for generations but he’s never been. Along with an elderly aunt, he begins restoring the long abandoned family home, set on a remote point, and quickly becomes enveloped by the quirky, tight community. Working as a newspaper reporter, Quoyle is assigned the shipping news beat, chronicling comings and goings in the local port. The Shipping News follows Quoyle as he becomes attached to where his family came from, builds connections, and creates a new life for himself and his girls among the fog and rocks of Newfoundland.

Why I was drawn to this book

My friend Rachel, a librarian at the Squamish Public Library, highly recommended The Shipping News. When Rachel recommends, I listen.

Three things I liked about The Shipping News

1. Dark humour

The Shipping News is peppered with dark humour that brings levity to the often heart-wrenching losses the characters endure. Despite the fact that his late wife constantly mistreated Quoyle, he is shattered by her death. He tries to keep his daughters, Bunny and Sunshine, from feeling a similar anguish by obscuring death for them. His daughters believe their mother went to sleep, and may even wake up one day. When a close friend of the family in Newfoundland drowns while out lobster fishing, Quoyle’s new girlfriend insists they explain to Bunny and Sunshine the reality of death—that it is permanent and nothing like slipping into a temporary sleep.

On the day of the wake, the girls have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept, clinging to the version of death their father has maintained. Then at the wake, the “dead” man suddenly sits straight up in his coffin, shocking the mourners. The frigid water he was submerged in slowed his heart beat down so significantly that the doctors mistakenly declared him dead. Bunny, watching the scene unfold at the wake, yells, “he woke up!”

2. Evolution of Quoyle’s understanding of love

The first chapter of this book is difficult to read as we watch Quoyle’s confidence diminished by Petal’s mistreatment. He is completely enamored with her, and she uses this to her advantage as she warps his sense of self. My favourite part of this book is Quoyle’s progression towards understanding what a supportive and healthy relationship is. When he first becomes involved with a kind woman in Killick-Claw, he finds himself missing the passion of his tumultuous relationship with Petal, and unsure if this new relationship holds weight. As they weather the ups and downs of life in rural Newfoundland with their respective children, Quoyle begins to understand that the discomfort he is feeling is due to him never having been in a healthy relationship.

I’ve been thinking recently about thought pathways, and how even when a way of thinking or reacting to something doesn’t serve us, sometimes when it is ingrained, it is difficult to change. I can see this in Quoyle as he slowly recalibrates to the fact that being in a relationship with someone can feel good, and a lack of anguish isn’t synonymous with a lack of love.

3. The descriptions of local Killick-Claw eats

Quoyle is a man who loves to eat, and often comforts himself with food. In illustrating this to the reader, Annie Proulx highlights unique dishes with ingredients pulled from the ocean and coastal forests surrounding Killick-Claw. The pages of The Shipping News are full of rich, salty-sounding dishes like seal flipper soup, lobster salad, snow crab, cod cheeks, hot rolls with patridgeberry jam, squid burgers, moose meatballs, and figgy duff with a dollop of rum sauce. I found myself looking forward to the food descriptions whenever Quoyle entered a friend’s home for dinner or headed into the local diner for a weekday lunch.

Notable Quote

“Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind is imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”

If you like The Shipping News, read:

Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx (this collection of short stories includes Brokeback Mountain)
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

Part 2: Good Bread

Blueberry Cinnamon Buns

Why this bread for this book?

There is a key scene in The Shipping News when Quoyle and his new love interest go berry picking with their children on a bluebird summer day. They manage to sneak away for a moment among the berry-filled bushes, and Quoyle begins to feel a deep connection to the woman. This is a key scene because the hold Petal has on Quoyle, even in death, begins to fade so he may let someone else in. I thought baking something with the fruit surrounding Quoyle during a pivotal moment in his Killick-Claw transformation would be a great for this book. I also baked the cinnamon buns in a cast iron pan, where they formed into one snug, sugary mass as they baked, similar to the tight, supportive community Quoyle and his girls are so fortunate to be embraced by.

Recipe

I used a recipe from Kroll’s Korner, here. The entire recipe took about two hours, and the cinnamon buns were really fun to make. The only process change I made was that I activated the yeast in the milk before adding to the flour mix. The recipe called for the yeast being added to the flour mix along with the milk, but in other recipes with that instruction, I’ve had problems with the yeast not activating. In terms of ingredient swaps, I didn’t have any orange juice, so used a few tablespoons of orange San Pellegrino instead.

The blueberry mixture is gorgeous and the recipe makes more than needed for the cinnamon buns, so I’ve got the remainder in my fridge ready to top yogurt bowls and oatmeal. The blackberries surrounding my cabin are beginning to turn from dark green to light purple, so I think I’ll recreate this recipe in a few weeks with them.

Looking forward…

New book I’m looking forward to reading:

Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe, here

Bread I’m looking forward to baking:

Soft sourdough potato buns, here

New album I’m looking forward to listening to while doing both of the above:

Surrender by Maggie Rogers, here

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