Tinkers

I'm giving this book 4 stars because it's obviously really well written, in almost prose-like fashion. I didn't love it, though. Admittedly, prose is lost on me. The only poet I really like is Billy Collins, and that's because he makes me laugh.

George Washington Crosby is on his deathbed, with his family keeping vigil seemingly around the clock. Clocks play a big role in this story, by the way. George was a clockmaker, and we get all kinds of lyrical descriptions of the inner workings of clocks. George's father, Howard, was a tinker by trade, and we learn, through flashbacks of sorts, not only about George's life but that of his father. Howard was an epileptic. When he finds out George's mother is planning to send him to an asylum, he leaves his family behind in Maine and sets off to start a new life in Philadelphia, never to see his family again except for one last meeting, 20 years later, when he shows up on George's doorstep on Christmas Day.

I had a hard time getting into the story. I'm not sure if it was the poetic descriptions or the lack of dialogue, but I felt like I was looking in on this story through slightly shaded curtains. Everything was a bit hazy. And it would jump from George's story to Howard's and was a little confusing for me at first too. (Later on he starts going back to HOWARD'S father, and I thought, oh, great, just when I was getting a grasp on which generation I was in...)

Good book. The story of two men's lives. It follows them from childhood to death, only touching on the things that shape them into the men that they become. The two stories are intertwined and it's beautifully written; this years Pullitzer Prize for Fiction winner.