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Tinkers Paperback – January 1, 2009

by Paul Harding (Author)

494 customer reviews

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Harding's outstanding debut unfurls the history and final thoughts of a dying grandfather surrounded by his family in his New England home. George Washington Crosby repairs clocks for a living and on his deathbed revisits his turbulent childhood as the oldest son of an epileptic smalltime traveling salesman. The descriptions of the father's epilepsy and the cold halo of chemical electricity that encircled him immediately before he was struck by a full seizure are stunning, and the household's sadness permeates the narrative as George returns to more melancholy scenes. The real star is Harding's language, which dazzles whether he's describing the workings of clocks, sensory images of nature, the many engaging side characters who populate the book, or even a short passage on how to build a bird nest. This is an especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* A tinker is a mender, and in Harding’s spellbinding debut, he imagines the old, mendable horse-and-carriage world. The objects of the past were more readily repaired than our electronics, but the living world was a mystery, as it still is, as it always will be. And so in this rhapsodic novel of impending death, Harding considers humankind’s contrary desires to conquer the “imps of disorder” and to be one with life, fully meshed within the great glimmering web. In the present, George lies on his death bed in the Massachusetts house he built himself, surrounded by family and the antique clocks he restores. George loves the precision of fine timepieces, but now he is at the mercy of chaotic forces and seems to be channeling his late father, Howard, a tinker and a mystic whose epileptic seizures strike like lightning. Howard, in turn, remembers his “strange and gentle” minister father. Each man is extraordinarily porous to nature and prone to becoming “unhitched” from everyday human existence and entering a state of ecstasy, even transcendence. Writing with breathtaking lyricism and tenderness, Harding has created a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense. --Donna Seaman

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Product details

Paperback: 191 pages
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press (January 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193413712X
ISBN-13: 978-1934137123
Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 7 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 494 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1381 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Psychological Thrillers
- #1808 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary
- #2233 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Family Life

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Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars

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Amazon Customer

This books requires time, thoughtfulness, and peripheral attention

April 5, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book is fantastic. I recommend reading it at the same time as Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson. I studied the books side by side, and the worlds they build are similar. House keeping also prepares a person for the poetic/soft/wild/spiritual/religious intensity of Paul Hardings prose. Another good match is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I will say, however, that this book takes time. Quiet time. Thoughtful time. You can't read it like its a cheap airport novel. Its a work of art and poetry and as pretentious as that sounds, it really deserves refined attention and thoughtfulness.

13 people found this helpful

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A Book to Savor

June 5, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I heard Paul Harding say of this book, the plot is on page one. Read this book slowly, as a meditation on life and death. The long descriptive passages-- the type of writing shunned today-- require a discipline the reading public at large is losing. Not an easy read, but wandering through these woods is worth the journey. Here you will encounter life's beauty and joy and pain and sorrow-- the connections that make us human and divine. Five stars for the use of language to infuse the ordinary with layers of meaning.

8 people found this helpful

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William H. Payne

Intricate, cold, and distant

August 1, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a carefully wrought piece of highly poetic prose describing the experience of an old man, George, dying in his bed at home, surrounded by his family. Over a span of a few days, George's mental process gradually fragments and floats back to his childhood. The author compares this process to descriptions of George's hobby, repairing antique clocks. Using clever excerpts from a fictional 18th century book, "The Reasonable Horologist," the author expands the clock imagery into an elaborate, Tim Burton-like tableau. From there, and most importantly, the author uses George's clock/death process to move into the story of George's epileptic father, Howard, working as a tinker, selling his wares in rural Maine. As Howard's sideways, supercharged mind encounters nature as a surreal temptress, the author is able to disgorge a tapestry of imaginary Maine in the early twentieth century. Howard's meanderings make the suffocating process of George's clock/death seem almost secondary, just as the "plot" of this novel, is secondary to the incredibly language abilities of its author.

This novel demonstrates deep thought and top-tier poetic ability. However, it does not invite real engagement from the reader the way a well-told story ought to. Frankly, if it were longer, I might not have finished it. The characters are too alien to inspire any empathy, and there is no sense that the author cares about them as anything more than vehicles for puzzle-box meditations on the meaning of everything. Having just finished Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams," in which the story and the poetry blend together beautifully, I was acutely aware that this novel was missing something. Roland Barthes talks about authors acquiring a certain "grain" in their storytelling voice that gives it character. This author has a cold, over-crafted, Iowa Writing School voice that screams talent without communicating much else. Maybe if Harding took some time away from Harvard to tell stories around the campfire, he would find a more connected tone.

11 people found this helpful

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Richly descriptive. A beautiful novel.

December 13, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Tinkers is a beautifully crafted, brief novel about three generations of New England fathers, the Crosbys. But don't let its brevity fool you, it is packed with powerful,explicative and textured writing that is to be savored.

A tinker is a mender, and each of these fathers was a tinker of one kind or another. The eldest, a minister who was always writing and re-writing sermons. The next, Howard, a peddler who sold pots, pans and other goods, constantly assembling and mending and finds some of his joy in working with these items. Finally, George, who we learn in the book's first sentence, is 8 days from death and surrounded by family and friends. George repaired clocks, and the clock is a nice metaphor for his life and life in general.

Tinkers moves through 3 different narratives. George's last week of life as he hallucinates in and out of consciousness, and then snippets from the lives of his father and grandfather. I personally found Howard's narrative the most poignant but all were beautifully and skillfully written. You will quickly learn that the book is driven less by plot and more by its sentences. There is a rich, descriptive text that let's you feel these moments and know these men in a relatively brief span of pages. This is a book to be read and re-read, its sentences to be enjoyed and admired for their power of description.

I also did a little reading about the author, Paul Harding and found his own story fascinating. He was told by agents and publishers for 3 years that Tinkers was too slow and contemplative for them to take a risk on. When he finally got it published, it basically arose out of "nowhere" to win the 2010 Pulitzer. The NY Times hadn't even reviewed the book! Tinkers is certainly a worthy winner, and is well worth your money and time.

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