“He had been so certain, up there on the roof, that he was the only one in the world who could hear the clocks.”
— George looking back at his childhood experience of hearing clocks from a distance.
Archivist's Choice
Tinkers
Paul Harding (2009)
Genre
Literary Fiction / Historical Fiction
Reading Time
3-4 hours
Key Themes
See below
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As a dying clock repairer nears his end, his mind turns to his poor Maine childhood, his epileptic peddler father, and his mad preacher grandfather, connecting time, nature, and old longings.
Synopsis
George Washington Crosby, an old clock repairer, lies dying, surrounded by his family. As he fades, his mind moves through memories, mixing his present with clear scenes from his past. He remembers his poor childhood in rural Maine, the strong influence of his father, Howard, an epileptic traveling peddler who left his life, and the shadow of his grandfather, a Methodist preacher who went mad. Through these broken but vivid memories, the novel looks at family, absence, the steady march of time, and the deep ties between generations, ending with George's final thoughts on life's beauty and how quickly it passes.
Reading time
3-4 hours
Difficulty
Medium
Pacing
Slow
Mood
Contemplative, Melancholy, Lyrical, Evocative, Poignant
✓ Read this if...
You appreciate lyrical prose, deep character introspection, and a non-linear narrative exploring themes of memory, time, and family legacy. Ideal for those who enjoy a contemplative and emotionally resonant reading experience.
✗ Skip this if...
You prefer fast-paced plots, strong dialogue, or a clear, linear storyline. The book's stream-of-consciousness style and focus on internal monologue might feel slow or abstract if you're looking for external action.
Plot Summary
George's Final Hours and the Clock
George Washington Crosby, an elderly clock repairer, is dying in his Maine home, propped up in his living room. His children and grandchildren are with him, watching his slow decline. As George fades, he sees the world around him with sharp senses, noticing dust in the air and the quiet sounds of the house. His mind begins to drift, first to the complex parts of the clocks he fixed his whole life, and then further back, into his many memories. His dying present is broken by flashes of his past, especially his poor childhood and the strong influence of his father and grandfather.
Recollections of Howard: The Itinerant Peddler
George often thinks of his father, Howard Crosby, a traveling peddler who sold housewares and tin goods from a horse-drawn wagon across rural Maine. Howard had severe epilepsy, and George clearly remembers the fear and helplessness he felt watching his father's seizures. These attacks often left Howard confused and weak, deeply affecting young George. Despite the struggles, George also remembers kind moments and their time together on the road, where Howard taught him about nature and hard work. Their life was marked by poverty and constant movement, shaping George's understanding of strength and loss.
The Burden of Epilepsy and Howard's Secret
Howard's epilepsy caused constant worry and hardship for the Crosby family. His unpredictable seizures made it hard to keep a steady job and often left him unable to work, putting a heavy load on his wife and children. As George remembers, the family feared these attacks, especially that they might happen while Howard was driving his wagon. The seriousness of his condition led to a sad choice: Howard, afraid he would hurt his family or himself during a seizure, decided to leave them. He meant to seek treatment or a new life, but he effectively left them to spare them more pain and the shame linked to his illness.
George's Childhood and the Aftermath of Abandonment
After Howard left, young George and his siblings faced extreme poverty. His mother, left to raise the children alone, struggled to make ends meet. George's memories from this time are full of images of not having enough, hard work, and a deep feeling of being left alone. He remembers the harshness of country life, the need to help the family survive, and the lasting emotional pain from his father's absence. Despite the hardship, these experiences gave George a strong sense of independence and resourcefulness, traits that would define his later life as a careful clock repairer.
The Grandfather: A Preacher's Madness
George's memories go back even further to his paternal grandfather, a passionate Methodist preacher named Howard Sr. The grandfather was a powerful man, dedicated to his faith, but he eventually suffered from a severe mental illness, described as a form of madness or dementia. George remembers his grandfather's unsettling change, as his once clear sermons and religious manner gave way to strange behavior and a loss of touch with reality. This decline into madness deeply affected the family, especially Howard, who inherited a tendency for his own health problems, creating a family pattern of illness and suffering that George now thinks about.
Clocks and the Nature of Time
Throughout his dying process, George's thoughts connect with his life's work: fixing clocks. He remembers the complex parts, the delicate balance of gears and springs, and the precision needed to make a stopped clock work again. For George, clocks are more than just tools for telling time; they are symbols for life itself, representing the way life, death, and memory repeat. He thinks about how time, though seemingly straight, can bend and loop in the mind, letting him revisit past moments clearly. His skill with clocks gave him a unique view on time's steady passage and the wish to fix what is broken.
The Present Moment: Family and Sounds
Despite his deep dives into memory, George often returns to the present, keenly aware of his family around his deathbed. He hears their quiet talks, the rustle of their movements, and the general mood of quiet watching. He notices the small details of his living room, how light falls, the familiar objects. These brief returns to the present act as anchors, keeping him in the reality of his dying, even as his mind continues its journey through the past. The sounds of the house, like a grandfather clock ticking, mix with the echoes of his own life, creating a rich sensory experience.
Nature and Solitude
George's memories often include the natural world of Maine, from the thick forests to the rough coast. He remembers moments of deep solitude spent outside, watching animals, the changing seasons, and the quiet beauty around him. These experiences gave him a sense of peace and connection, especially during his tough childhood. He remembers his father, Howard, teaching him about trees and animals, giving him a love for nature's careful balance. This deep connection to the land offered George a refuge and a source of wonder, a sharp contrast to his family's hardships and the inner struggles of his father and grandfather.
The Cycle of Life and Death
As his life ends, George thinks about the cycle of life and death. He watches his children and grandchildren, seeing parts of himself and his ancestors in their faces and actions. He understands that while his own life is ending, his legacy, both genetic and from his experiences, will continue through them. His memories, especially of his father and grandfather, show the family patterns of struggle, strength, and love. George finds a quiet acceptance in this continuation, seeing his own life as part of a larger, ongoing story, much like the constant ticking of a clock that, even when broken, still has the chance to be fixed.
Final Moments and Legacy
In his final moments, George's mind becomes more and more fragmented, blending past and present into a single whole. The specific details of his memories mix with the sensory input of his dying room. He feels a sense of peace, a quiet fading into the vastness of time and memory. His life, with all its joys and sorrows, its complex parts and broken pieces, finds its end. The novel finishes with George's peaceful death, leaving his family to deal with his absence but also to carry on the rich fabric of his memories and the deep lessons learned from his unique view on time, family, and being human.
Principal Figures
George Washington Crosby
The Protagonist
From a bewildered, suffering child, George matures into a contemplative old man who, on his deathbed, achieves a profound acceptance of his life's complexities and his place within a generational lineage.
Howard Crosby
The Supporting
Howard's arc is one of gradual decline and eventual self-imposed exile, driven by his illness and a desperate desire to protect his family from its consequences.
Howard Sr.
The Supporting
Howard Sr.'s arc is one of a respected spiritual leader's tragic decline into mental illness, highlighting the vulnerability of even the most devout.
George's Mother
The Supporting
Her arc is one of enduring hardship and quiet strength, adapting to immense challenges to ensure her children's survival.
George's Children and Grandchildren
The Supporting
They represent the ongoing cycle of life and the future recipients of the family's collective memory, maintaining a quiet vigil.
Themes & Insights
Time and Memory
The novel deeply considers the nature of time, not as a straight line, but as something flowing and repeating. George's dying allows his mind to move freely between past and present, mixing clear memories of his childhood and ancestors with his current physical feelings. His job as a clock repairer highlights this theme, as he understands the complex parts that control time and the wish to fix what is broken. The story's structure itself reflects this flow, moving smoothly between different times, suggesting that the past is never truly gone but always changed by the present.
““The past, he thought, was not a line, but a series of concentric circles, expanding and contracting, always returning to the same central point.””
Generational Legacy and Suffering
The book explores how the lives and struggles of earlier generations strongly affect later ones. The Crosby family has a history of illness and hardship: George's grandfather, Howard Sr., goes mad; his father, Howard, suffers from severe epilepsy and leaves his family; and George himself carries the emotional scars of this past. This theme shows how physical and mental weaknesses, as well as choices made by earlier generations, echo through time, shaping the identities and experiences of those who follow. Yet, it also suggests a legacy of strength and love that lasts despite the pain.
““He saw that the past was not just his own, but a tapestry woven from the lives of those who came before him, their joys and sorrows, their madness and their love, all bound together.””
The Beauty and Harshness of Nature
The natural world of rural Maine is both beautifully grand and harshly unforgiving. George's memories are full of descriptions of the landscape, from the tiny details of a forest to the changing seasons, showing a deep connection to nature. Nature offers comfort and wonder, especially for young George and his father, Howard. However, it also brings challenges, such as the poverty caused by tough farm life and the isolation of living in the country. The repeating nature of the seasons and the raw power of the wilderness mirror the cycles of life and death within human experience.
““The beauty of the world, he thought, was a terrible and fleeting thing, always on the verge of disappearing, always returning in a new form.””
Love, Loss, and Abandonment
At its heart, 'Tinkers' is a story about the strong power of love and the lasting pain of loss and being left. Howard's love for his family is clear, yet his fear of his epilepsy leads him to a heartbreaking act of leaving, deeply scarring George. George's memories are filled with both the tenderness he felt for his father and the lingering ache of his absence. The novel explores the complex feelings involved, showing how love can appear in difficult choices and how loss shapes a person's entire life. Ultimately, it suggests that even when someone is gone, family bonds and memories of love remain.
““He realized that love was not a thing that could be broken or mended, but a force that simply was, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, always present.””
Plot Devices & Literary Techniques
Stream of Consciousness
The narrative flows freely through George's thoughts and memories without strict chronological order.
The novel primarily uses a stream of consciousness technique, mirroring George Washington Crosby's dying mind. The narrative shifts seamlessly between present observations from his deathbed and vivid recollections of his past, particularly his father Howard and grandfather Howard Sr. This device allows for a non-linear exploration of time and memory, reflecting the subjective and often fragmented nature of human thought. It creates an intimate and immersive experience, drawing the reader directly into George's internal world and allowing for complex thematic connections across different time periods.
Flashback and Memory
Extensive use of flashbacks to reveal the intricate histories of George's ancestors.
Flashbacks are central to the novel's structure, serving as the primary means of revealing the backstories of George's father, Howard, and grandfather, Howard Sr. These detailed and often lengthy excursions into the past are triggered by George's present thoughts or sensory experiences. They are not merely chronological insertions but deeply intertwined with George's current reflections on life, death, and family legacy. This device allows the author to build a rich historical context for George's present state, illustrating the generational patterns of illness, resilience, and love that define the Crosby family.
Symbolism of Clocks and Tinkering
Clocks symbolize time, its fragility, and the human desire to mend what is broken.
George's profession as a clock repairer is deeply symbolic. Clocks represent the relentless, yet intricate, passage of time. His ability to mend broken mechanisms mirrors his internal process of piecing together his own fragmented memories and understanding his family's 'broken' history. The act of tinkering suggests meticulous care, patience, and a deep understanding of how small parts contribute to a larger whole. It also symbolizes the human desire to impose order on chaos, to fix what is damaged, and to find meaning in the complex machinery of life and death. The ticking of a clock serves as a constant reminder of George's dwindling time.
Sensory Imagery
Rich, detailed descriptions of sensory experiences to immerse the reader.
The novel employs extensive sensory imagery, particularly focusing on sight, sound, and touch, to create a vivid and immersive reading experience. George's heightened senses on his deathbed allow for incredibly detailed descriptions of dust motes in the air, the sounds of his family, the intricate workings of a clock, and the natural world of Maine. This device brings the past and present to life, making George's memories palpable and immediate. It also underscores his unique way of perceiving the world, a legacy perhaps from his observant father, and emphasizes the preciousness of sensory experience at the end of life.
Critical analysis
Notable Quotes
“He had spent his whole life waiting for something to happen, and now that something was happening, he wished it would stop.”
— George on his deathbed, reflecting on his life and the imminence of death.
“The world was a machine, he thought, and he was a tinker, mending it one broken clock at a time.”
— George reflecting on his profession and its meaning.
“Time was not a river, but a vast and intricate clockwork, and he was one of its cogs, turning slowly, inevitably.”
— George's philosophical contemplation of time's nature.
“Every object had a story, a memory, a ghost of its former self.”
— George observing the old, broken items in his workshop.
“The past was not dead, it was not even past. It was a present, always present, always pressing in.”
— A reflection on the persistent presence of past events and memories.
“He knew that the world was full of wonders, and that most of them went unnoticed.”
— George's quiet observation of the world around him.
“The silence was not empty, but full of the sound of clocks ticking, a symphony of time.”
— George's experience of the quiet within his home, filled with the sounds of his work.
“He tried to remember the last time he had felt truly alive, and realized it had been a long time ago, too long.”
— George's introspection on his life and fading vitality.
“The air itself seemed to hum with the accumulated weight of all the hours that had passed.”
— Atmospheric description of George's workshop or home.
“To mend a clock was to mend a piece of the world, to bring order to chaos, however small.”
— George's internal monologue about the significance of his craft.
“Death was not an end, but a rearrangement, a scattering of parts that would find new forms.”
— A philosophical musing on the nature of death and transformation.
“He thought of his father, a man who had seen the world in fragments, and tried to put them back together with words.”
— George reflecting on his father's literary and philosophical inclinations.
“The world was a book, and he was trying to read it, but the pages kept turning too fast.”
— George's sense of being overwhelmed by the passage of time and events.
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Key Questions (FAQ)
The novel primarily follows George Washington Crosby, an elderly clock repairman, as he lies on his deathbed, experiencing vivid memories and hallucinations. These recollections span his own life, focusing on his impoverished childhood in rural Maine and his complex relationship with his epileptic father, Howard.
About the author
Biography coming soon.
