Tinkers

George Washington Crosby, a retired repairer of antique clocks, lies dying in the New England house he built with his own hands, his family gathered around him. Drifting in and out of the present, he goes back to his poor boyhood and to his father, Howard, a peddler in the 1920s who sold soap and household goods to poor farm wives. Howard has a poet's love of the woods and suffers violent epileptic seizures, and he barely earns enough for his bitter wife and their four children. Moving between father and son through memories, diary entries, stream of consciousness and passages from old clock-repair manuals, the novel slowly uncovers what happened to the family when George was a boy.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Family, Nature (assigned by AI)

Set in

United States

First published

2009

Author's age

42 when first published

ISBN

9781934137123 (Bellevue Literary Press, United States)

9780099538042 (Windmill Books, United Kingdom)

9781942658603 (Bellevue Literary Press, United States)

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Wikidata