The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 1 April 2015
by Paul Harding
In the opening paragraph of this grimly witty novel, Charlie Crosby's daughter is killed in an accident as she rides her bike home from the beach. Everything that follows is tinged with grief, despair, decay and addiction. Charlie falls into an extended depression. He injures himself and becomes hooked on pain killers, which, he finds, dull the sadness and enhance what's left of his reality and any tiny connection he retains with his lost daughter. Charlie Crosby is the grandson of George Washington Crosby, the protagonist of Harding's Pulitzer-winning novel, Tinkers. This connection isn't terribly significant, but it shows Charlie's connection to the New England landscape in which he lives, and his tendency toward an inherited grim view of life and mortality. And, throughout, Charlie is sharply aware of what he is doing to himself. He stands to one side, and watches his decay with almost clinical observation. But this is where the wit comes in. Charlie is almost amused at the extremity of his despair and decay. He lurks in the landscape, like one of its many historical ghosts. And the landscape, in his drug-addled visions, comes to embrace him. A year passes, and we can hardly imagine how rotted and broken Charlie's life has become. And yet, he retains this connection to the place. The place nurtures him. And its denizens contribute to him a reason to go on. This is a strange and dark book, but Harding infuses it with a narrative that draws the reader along, never wholly giving in to despair. One wonders what ever made him go there, but there, in the midst of mortality, is a wonder at the complexity and endurance of life.
Also by Harding: [Tinkers]