“The Shipping News” (post 2) by E. Annie Proulx (first edition) or Annie Proulx (later edition): Novel’s confusing assortment of psychological and medical issues 

“Quoyle [the protagonist] shambled, a head taller than any other child around him, was soft. He knew it. ‘Ah, you lout,” said the father. But no pygmy himself. And brother Dick, the father’s favorite, pretended to throw up when Quoyle came into the room, hissed ‘Lardass, Snotface, Ugly Pig, Warthog, Stupid, Stinkbomb, Fart-tub, Greasebag,' pummeled and kicked until Quoyle curled, hands over head, sniveling, on the linoleum. All stemmed from Quoyle’s chief failure, a failure of normal appearance [including] a giant’s chin” (1, p. 2). 

Comment: By “a giant’s chin,” did the author mean to imply that the protagonist had acromegaly, a neurological-hormonal illness, which may be complicated by avoidant personality traits?

“ ‘Yis, said the old man. ‘I remembers the Quoyles and their trouble. They was a savage pack. In the olden days they say Quoyles [family] nailed a man to a tree by ‘is ears, cut off ‘is nose for the scent of blood to draw the nippers and flies that devoured ‘im alive..” (1, p. 139).

Comment: I will continue reading in the hope that these psychological and medical issues will be clarified.

1. Annie Proulx. The Shipping News [1993]. New York, Scribner, 2003.