Tinkers by Paul Harding

8.5/10 dropps

Not only is Paul Harding’s Tinkers a debut novel, it is the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner. Not bad for an emerging writer, eh? We will be the judge of that! Let the judgement begin.

Obligatory Book Synopsis-
George Washington Crosby is dying. Days before his death, he begins to hallucinate and recalls memories of his childhood in New England. In his youth, his father, Howard, is a salesman that travels through the countryside in a buggy pulled by a mule. He and his family are poor. As George approaches death, the memories of his father and their implications become stronger and grow more personal. Filled with beautiful language strongly tied to the New England countryside, Tinkers is intensely reflective and explores what it means for one to love, to lose, and to fade away.

Now, I have to be straight with you. I bought this book based on its cover. What that says about me I cannot imagine, but I have yet to read a book that I have purchased based on these arbitrary aesthetical values and been disappointed. Just look at the cover. Has a Fargo/Coen Brother thing going for it, doesn’t it?

To save myself from being a liar, I will say that I genuinely enjoyed reading Tinkers, though it was quite a different reading experience from those that I generally regard as “good books”. I found myself reading slowly through the prose, lyrical but remote at times, making the novel feel more like driving nowhere down a dirt road, and at others, like a warm and comforting patchwork quilt pulled up to the chin. I took my time with this one unlike some books that I have read through feverishly in the night losing sleep in order to finish, and I normally would think that this was indicative of the book’s lack of intrigue, but I am here today to argue that a good book does not have to be engorged in a single sitting.

Were this book a beer, it would be a craft brew (Perhaps a hard cider?). One that only a fool would down in a gulp (in order to impress friends, I’m sure). No, I would say wait for a cold, rainy day and stay indoors with this book. Open it up and read it slow.

I leave you with this passage from the book.

“And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.”

-John Ellis