Tinkers (2009) is Paul Harding’s debut novel. It delves into the life of a dying man, George Washington Crosby, as he reflects on his past and his family history. The narrative weaves together George’s memories with stories from his father’s life, and it explores the themes of mortality, memory, and the interconnectedness of generations. The novel, which is considered literary fiction, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2010 PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize.

This guide refers to the 10th anniversary paperback edition of Tinkers.

Plot Summary

George Washington Crosby is at home, on his deathbed, and he loses himself in memories from his past. George recalls his passion for repairing clocks; he discovered his love for fixing clocks after he bought a broken clock at a tag sale and received an 18th-century repair manual with it. He hallucinates that his house collapses around him and that he falls to his basement workshop, where he is surrounded by clocks.

George thinks about his father, Howard Aaron Crosby, a traveling salesman and tinker who travels across rural Maine with his wagon of everyday goods. Howard has epilepsy, although he and his wife, Kathleen, keep this a secret from their children. Howard enjoys fixing things, but he sometimes doesn’t even charge people for the tinkering jobs he takes on. He also finds it difficult to sell his goods as the people around them are not wealthy and are wary about spending their money. As a result, Kathleen often criticizes him.

Days before his death, George wakes in the night to see his grandson, Charlie, sitting by his bedside reading. It is very quiet, and George finds the silence startling. He realizes that all the clocks that he surrounds himself with have stopped ticking, and Charlie tells him that George’s wife told Charlie not to wind them so George could rest peacefully, without the ticking of the clocks disturbing him. However, George associates the clocks’ silence with the coming silence of his own heart. Panicked, he convinces Charlie to wind them.

While shaving George, another grandson, Sam, cuts him, and the blood causes a stir. The family works to change George’s clothes and sheets. Afterward, George begins to ponder the legacy he will leave behind and what his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will remember about him. He recalls a night when Howard comes home late because he has a seizure; George minds his younger siblings as Kathleen helps Howard clean up.

The only seizure that George sees his father having occurs on Christmas Day in 1926. Howard begins convulsing as he slices the ham, and he falls, hitting his head. Kathleen asks George to help and he puts a spoon in his father’s mouth to stop Howard from biting his tongue. When the spoon breaks, George tries to retrieve the pieces from Howard’s mouth, but Howard ends up biting George’s hand. The bite is severe and needs stitches. When Kathleen consults the doctor about Howard’s epilepsy, he gives her a pamphlet for a hospital where people with intellectual disabilities are committed.

George is disturbed by the events at home, and with conflicted feelings toward his parents, he runs away. Kathleen sends Howard after George, and when he leaves the house, she puts the pamphlet for the hospital out in the open. George hides in a friend’s shed; Howard hopes that George makes it far, to a new life, and is disappointed when he finds him. He brings George back home and notices the pamphlet that Kathleen has left out. Howard decides to leave the family and the next day, he sets out with the intention to never return.

Howard recalls his own childhood and his father, a preacher who had an illness that weakened him both mentally and physically. Howard watched his father’s decline with fear and shame. One day, Howard’s parents got into a carriage together, but only his mother returned, saying that his father was gone. After his father’s disappearance, Howard tried to find him in the natural world. He walked into a pond until only his head remained above water, and he was determined to stay in this position all night. The next morning, some hunters found Howard unconscious by the pond and brought him back to their camp to warm him up. When he woke, Howard wandered off alone and experienced his first seizure. Afterward, Howard felt like he’d had a brush with death, and as a result, he came to see life as a fragile miracle.

After Howard leaves his family in Maine, he settles in Philadelphia, where he finds a job working in a grocery store. He works hard and has creative ideas, and he quickly advances to management. He takes a new name and marries a woman named Megan who is talkative and caring. Despite his happy new life, Howard remains haunted by memories of his children. In January 1972, Howard tells Megan of his idea that he has a shadow self that lives another life; that night, he dies in his sleep.

Nearly two decades before this, on Christmas Eve, 1953, Megan goes to Pittsburgh alone to care for her ailing mother. Howard takes this opportunity to find George. He borrows a car from a friend and drives to Enon, MA. George recalls opening the door to find his father on his doorstep. Howard only stays for a brief time, introducing himself to his grandchildren and asking George about his siblings. This is the last scene George remembers before he dies.