Tinkers

Paul Harding's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Tinkers examines life and death as told through the voices of three men in one flawed family.

George Washington Crosby is dying. In his final days his mind wanders back to his father, Howard, who worked as a tinker, taking supplies to people living in rural areas. Howard leaves home one morning driving his wagon and never comes home. Eventually the mystery of his abandonment of his family is unraveled. It is made clearer when we learn the circumstances surrounding how Howard's own father left his family.

Tinkers is a remarkable novel, beautifully written and constructed. And yet while I respect Harding's writing, it's not a book that I enjoyed reading. Its contemplative style reminded me of Marilyn Robinson's Gilead (one of my all-time favorite books) but it lacks the emotional heft of Robinson's works.

Tinkers is best read in one sitting while ensconced in a quiet spot without interruptions. Unfortunately my reading of it was grabbed in snatches of 10 or 15 minutes with many distractions vying for my attention. I kept losing the thread of what was happening (now why is he describing how to build a bird's nest?). These are deficiencies of the reader and not necessarily of the book.