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canadianbookworm's review
5.0
I loved his first book Tinkers, and I wasn't the only one as it one a Pulitzer. This book follows the grandson of the protagonist of the first book George Crosby. Charlie Crosby is also a man a bit outside society. Charlie dropped out of university, and the family relies on his wife Susan, a teacher, as the main breadwinner. Charlie works on people's lawns and yard upkeep. As the book begins, their daughter Kate has just been killed in a car accident as she was bicycling home from the beach.
The novel follows Charlie as he retreats into his grief, pushing away his wife, and going into a world ruled by his grief, the pain of a hand he breaks in a fit of rage around that grief, and the drugs he comes to rely on to get by. We see Charlie as he sinks inward into madness and delusion and does things he would never have believed of himself before.
Harding is a magnificent writer and his language brings Charlie's inner world and outer descent into something we can see and feel along with him. I was moved by his sorrow, and angered by his self-pity. His delusions were brought to life through the power of words.
The story takes place in the small town in Massachusetts where Charlie grew up, raised by his mother and grandparents, Enon. As Charlie disintegrates, we see his memories of life in the town, growing up himself, and experiencing it with Kate. We come to know his surroundings, from Enon Lake to the cemetery where Kate now lies beside Charlie's mother and grandparents. We see his brief and rare interactions with others, feel how he struggles with them, his discomfort.
This is a book that I will not easily forget, and will come back to again.
The novel follows Charlie as he retreats into his grief, pushing away his wife, and going into a world ruled by his grief, the pain of a hand he breaks in a fit of rage around that grief, and the drugs he comes to rely on to get by. We see Charlie as he sinks inward into madness and delusion and does things he would never have believed of himself before.
Harding is a magnificent writer and his language brings Charlie's inner world and outer descent into something we can see and feel along with him. I was moved by his sorrow, and angered by his self-pity. His delusions were brought to life through the power of words.
The story takes place in the small town in Massachusetts where Charlie grew up, raised by his mother and grandparents, Enon. As Charlie disintegrates, we see his memories of life in the town, growing up himself, and experiencing it with Kate. We come to know his surroundings, from Enon Lake to the cemetery where Kate now lies beside Charlie's mother and grandparents. We see his brief and rare interactions with others, feel how he struggles with them, his discomfort.
This is a book that I will not easily forget, and will come back to again.
jeanm333's review
2.0
Just because he won a Pulitzer Prize for his first book "Tinkers," I guess Paul Harding's editors couldn't bear to tell him his second novel didn't work.
The story is about a guy named Charlie Crosby, (grandson of the narrator in Tinkers) whose 13 year-old daughter is killed on her bicycle and his wife leaves him. That's about all the plot there is. The rest of the book is Charlie wandering around, having fantasies about his daughter, slowly falling into a pit of self-abuse (drugs) and self-pity. Yuck!
Reading this just after my writing coach told me that a series of events does not a novel make, it was a perfect illustration of what not to do.
The language is eloquent and lovely, but it's still not a novel.
I picked it up initially with great expectations, putting it down after I saw it was about grief for the death of a child. I always have trouble with this subject matter, but I thought maybe there was something redeeming about it. So I picked it up again and read more (it's a short book). Nope. Nothing more interesting than more grief, more hallucinations, more drugs.
There is one small part near the end (minor spoiler) where Charlie seems to see something vague that he describes it only as "a sound no human ear can hear".
And what happened to Charlie's wife?
Several reviewers said it was a good description of grief, but, again, that's not a novel. I want to read something that will inspire me, make me laugh, give me hope. Life is too short to read stuff like this, even if it's a short book.
The story is about a guy named Charlie Crosby, (grandson of the narrator in Tinkers) whose 13 year-old daughter is killed on her bicycle and his wife leaves him. That's about all the plot there is. The rest of the book is Charlie wandering around, having fantasies about his daughter, slowly falling into a pit of self-abuse (drugs) and self-pity. Yuck!
Reading this just after my writing coach told me that a series of events does not a novel make, it was a perfect illustration of what not to do.
The language is eloquent and lovely, but it's still not a novel.
I picked it up initially with great expectations, putting it down after I saw it was about grief for the death of a child. I always have trouble with this subject matter, but I thought maybe there was something redeeming about it. So I picked it up again and read more (it's a short book). Nope. Nothing more interesting than more grief, more hallucinations, more drugs.
There is one small part near the end (minor spoiler) where Charlie seems to see something vague that he describes it only as "a sound no human ear can hear".
And what happened to Charlie's wife?
Several reviewers said it was a good description of grief, but, again, that's not a novel. I want to read something that will inspire me, make me laugh, give me hope. Life is too short to read stuff like this, even if it's a short book.
samhouston's review
4.0
The opening paragraph of Paul Harding’s Enon is one of the most intriguing ones I have read in a long while:
“Most men in my family make widows of their wives and orphans of their children. I am the exception. My only child, Kate, was struck and killed by a car while riding her bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September, a year ago. She was thirteen. My wife, Susan, and I separated soon afterward.”
Charlie Crosby was a happy man the year before he spoke those words. Now, one year later, he is lucky to be alive after having suffered through the kind of agonizing grief and despair that could easily have claimed his life. And it’s not as if he didn’t try very hard to do the job on himself.
Harding has written an insightful exploration of grief and how it forever changes those who suffer its devastating pain. Charlie handled it (poorly) by giving up on life and becoming addicted to painkillers; his wife handled it (equally poorly) by almost immediately giving up on her marriage and permanently running home to her parents. Who is to say they would not have done the same if faced with the prospect of suddenly having to face life without the bright, funny little girl around whom that life was centered?
Enon can at times be difficult to read. Sometimes that’s because of its subject matter – it’s always hard to read about the self-destruction of a character as sympathetic as Charlie Crosby – and sometimes because Harding’s account of Charlie’s weird dreams and delusions simply go on too long. But this is easily forgiven in a novel that that takes such a head-on approach to one of the most painful experiences there is: the loss of a child. Paul Harding packs a lot into this short (238 pages) novel.
“Most men in my family make widows of their wives and orphans of their children. I am the exception. My only child, Kate, was struck and killed by a car while riding her bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September, a year ago. She was thirteen. My wife, Susan, and I separated soon afterward.”
Charlie Crosby was a happy man the year before he spoke those words. Now, one year later, he is lucky to be alive after having suffered through the kind of agonizing grief and despair that could easily have claimed his life. And it’s not as if he didn’t try very hard to do the job on himself.
Harding has written an insightful exploration of grief and how it forever changes those who suffer its devastating pain. Charlie handled it (poorly) by giving up on life and becoming addicted to painkillers; his wife handled it (equally poorly) by almost immediately giving up on her marriage and permanently running home to her parents. Who is to say they would not have done the same if faced with the prospect of suddenly having to face life without the bright, funny little girl around whom that life was centered?
Enon can at times be difficult to read. Sometimes that’s because of its subject matter – it’s always hard to read about the self-destruction of a character as sympathetic as Charlie Crosby – and sometimes because Harding’s account of Charlie’s weird dreams and delusions simply go on too long. But this is easily forgiven in a novel that that takes such a head-on approach to one of the most painful experiences there is: the loss of a child. Paul Harding packs a lot into this short (238 pages) novel.
robholden111's review
5.0
This is the best book I've read in a very long time. Alongside Toni Morrison, Paul Harding has the inexplicable ability to bring the tradition of oral storytelling to life in written form. Masterfully written and truly, humanly, rewardingly heartbreaking.
charlesdoddwhite's review
4.0
Some beautiful moments, though there are times when the prolonged lyrical writing drew me away from the emotional center. Harding remains one of those writers who I will always read with pleasure and admiration.
dmahaffey's review
4.0
There are a couple of stunning extended metaphors in this novel that bump it up a full star. It is otherwise an account of the way grief untethers us, told with a restrained, brokenhearted lyricism. But go read [b:Tinkers|4957350|Tinkers|Paul Harding|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1364258693s/4957350.jpg|5023150] first.
hognob's review
4.0
What a strange, infuriating, lovely, weird book. A sort of sequel (but not really) to the Pulitzer prize winning "Tinkers", Enon follows Charlie Crosby, the grandson of "Tinkers" main character, as he navigates the death of his daughter. What's most striking about this novel is that there's almost lead up to the death itself, it occurs in the first paragraph of the book, and is given as fact. There are no big twists, no real "plot" here, other than watching Charlie descend into his grief and become transformed by it. There's no goal, no quest, just a man interpreting cosmic violence, and in small moments enacting that violence back out into the world. There are beautiful images throughout the novel (in particular there's a rather distressing image towards the end of a cape made of the bones of dead birds, which grows as live birds begin to nest and live in it), but there are also long, frustrating descriptions that felt flat to me or cliche in some ways. Charlie takes refuge from his despair in booze and painkillers, and there are moments that just feel... almost too stylized, too bumbling, or too "this is how drugs work"... I'm not sure how to describe it, but there's something in how his addiction developes and plays out that didn't sit right with me. If you were a fan of "Tinkers", I'd say this is worth picking up, but it's different, and not as powerful or beautiful. However, it's a different story, a different focus. The strongest parts of this book are when Charlie remembers moments of his life with his daughter, as she is possibly the strongest and clearest character in the whole novel, and the love depicted between them is gorgeous and heartbreaking. I enjoyed reading it, but was frustrated as it felt like it continually had fallen short of what it could be.
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