It's hard to believe this book was written by the same author as "The Accordian Crimes". I found this story of a down-on-his-luck father very intriguing. The setting of the book was interesting also.

Library Journal:
Off the beaten track of contemporary American fiction in both style and setting, this remarkable second novel by the author should capture the attention of readers and critics. Huge, homely Quoyle works off and on for a newspaper. His cheating wife Petal is killed in a car crash while abandoning him and their two preschool daughters. Wallowing in grief, Quoyle agrees to accompany his elderly aunt and resettle in a remote Newfoundland fishing village. Memorable characters--gay aunt Agnis, difficult daughter Bunny, new love interest Wavey, many colorful locals in their new hometown--combine with dark stories of the Quoyle family's past and the staccato, often subjectless or verbless sentences (bound to make English teachers cringe) to create a powerful whole.

Why do so many great authors come out of Newfoundland? It's a very profilic place. This book is sort of post-modern; not a whole lot happens; it's just a series of vignettes that weave together about seemingly unrelated people who are actually tangled up in a web. Think of it as the Robert Altman's Short Cuts of Canadian literature.

What's remarkable about the book isn't the plot (or plots) but the author's style. She has a knack of catching the mundane details, the shape of an egg-cup, a description of the medicine cabinet, the sneer of a rude cashier, and painting them in language that is descriptive yet spare. I could learn a lot from this style. I'll be interested to read this young author's next work.

a really interesting historical frame of reference - not about the historical influence of a person, nation or idea, as typical, but of a homely fish.

Lots of people had warned me away from this book, but after reading it, I couldn't understand why. As far as I'm concerned it's got just about everything I'd want... starting with a creepy, mystery. Then there's the forbidden romance intertwined with everything, and finally an absolutely wonderful adventure story.

Like Johnston's earlier novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, this book interposes fictional characters with real people from history. So not only do you get an absolutely readable book, you also get to learn a lot about the history of polar exploration.