How long is it?
208 pages in the Bellevue Literary Press 2019 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
Tinkers
Highly regardedPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2010Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 59 / 100High
- Length
- 208 pagesBellevue Literary Press · 2019
- Reading time
- 4 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Slow
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 4 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 9 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
As his children and grandchildren gather around his deathbed in New England, retired clock repairman George Washington Crosby recalls his impoverished childhood and his father, Howard, a traveling seller of household goods. Howard’s epilepsy complicates the work of supporting his family, and George’s recollections reach toward a father whose inner life he only partly understood.
Reader notes
Quiet and elegiac, the short literary novel interrupts memories with imagined scenes, intricate descriptions of clock mechanisms and close observations of the woods. Its fragmented chronology and long descriptive passages can take adjustment: the story develops through associations and perceptions more than a continuous sequence of events.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Dense · Fragmentary · Lyrical · Poetic
- Tone
- Atmospheric · Intimate · Melancholic · Reflective
- Structure
- Braided · Fragmented · Nonlinear
- Driven by
- Atmosphere · Character · Voice
- Point of view
- Multiple viewpoints · Third person, limited · First person
- Setting
- New England
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 4 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 4 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Family
- Isolation
- Legacy
- Memory
- Mortality
- Nature and environment
Content notes
- Violence
- None
- Sexual content
- None
- Swearing
- None
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- Mild
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2010
- Los Angeles Times Book Prizes finalist, 2009
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Bellevue Literary Press · 2019 · Paperback. ISBN 9781942658603.
How long does it take to read Tinkers?
About 4 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 208-page Bellevue Literary Press edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Paul Harding
Paul Harding writes closely observed novels in which modest New England lives open onto mortality, memory, grief, and imperfect perception. He tends to begin with an image or atmosphere rather than a fixed plan, allowing plot and form to emerge through an improvisatory, collage-like process. Tinkers moves nonchronologically among three generations and several consciousnesses, transforming fragments of family history through imaginative invention. Enon narrows the perspective to a grieving father’s confessional voice, with a broken structure that follows his disorientation instead of explaining it from a distance. This Other Eden expands the scale to a threatened island community, shifting among competing viewpoints while blending historical material with biblical, literary, and artistic traditions.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Bellevue Literary Press
- Publication year
- 2019
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 208
- ISBN
- 9781942658603
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2009
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction · Experimental fiction · Psychological fiction
- Editions
- 15
- Languages
- 2 (English, Unspecified)