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* FlashForward: While most of the book is a series of flashbacks, there are a couple of flash-forwards about his wife Betsy. In one Betsy is described as tenderly caring for George's grave, and another mentions how years later she bought a retirement condo with the cash George got from clock mending, which he stashed away in deposit boxes.
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* FlashForward: While most of the book is a series of flashbacks, there are a couple of flash-forwards about his George's wife Betsy. In one Betsy is described as tenderly caring for George's grave, and another mentions how years later she bought a retirement condo with the cash George got from clock mending, which he stashed away in deposit boxes.
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* HistoryWithCelebrity: Gilbert the hermit claims he went to school with Creator/NathanielHawthorne. Nobody believes this, because Gilbert is a filthy, smelly hermit, and because if that were true Gilbert would have to be very very old. But after Howard does some DIYDentistry and yanks Gilbert's last tooth, he receives in the mail a pristine, signed and inscribed, first edition of ''The Scarlet Letter'' once given to Gilbert.
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* HistoryWithCelebrity: Gilbert the hermit claims he went to school with Creator/NathanielHawthorne. Nobody believes this, because Gilbert is a filthy, smelly hermit, and because if that were true Gilbert would have to be very very old. But after Howard does some DIYDentistry and yanks Gilbert's last tooth, he receives in the mail a pristine, signed and inscribed, first edition of ''The Scarlet Letter'' once given to Gilbert.Gilbert by Hawthorne.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7e15561db8c62832bee8f0d70437838a.jpg]]
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* JobTitle: Howard did this for a living. George was a teacher and guidance counselor but moonlighted as a clock repairman.
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* BladeOfGrassCut: There are many passages throughout the book that describe the beauty of nature in minute, vivid detail. Here's how the book describes a bloom of spring flowers, as Howard is out on his rounds delivering goods:
-->A late-spring storm capped the last daffodils and the first tulips with dollops of snow, which melted when the sun came back out. The snow seemed to have a bracing effect on the flowers; their roots drank the cold melt, their stalks straightened from the chilly drink; their petals, supple and hale, were spared the brittle coating of a true freeze. The afternoon became warm, and with the warmth the first bees appeared, and each little bee settled in a yellow cup and took suck like a newborn....He crouched to look at a daffodil. Its six-petaled corona was fully unfurled, like a bright miniature sun. A bee crawled in its cup, massaging stigma and anther and style.
-->A late-spring storm capped the last daffodils and the first tulips with dollops of snow, which melted when the sun came back out. The snow seemed to have a bracing effect on the flowers; their roots drank the cold melt, their stalks straightened from the chilly drink; their petals, supple and hale, were spared the brittle coating of a true freeze. The afternoon became warm, and with the warmth the first bees appeared, and each little bee settled in a yellow cup and took suck like a newborn....He crouched to look at a daffodil. Its six-petaled corona was fully unfurled, like a bright miniature sun. A bee crawled in its cup, massaging stigma and anther and style.
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* RiddleForTheAges: Once when Howard was young, a man went insane with the cold, dark New England winter and set fire to his house. His neighbors found the bodies of the man and his wife and two children inside--except that not long after the man's wife and children, who had been off visiting her mother, returned to town. No one ever found out who the mysterious dead woman and children in the house were.
* SliceOfLife: There is no story. There's just the dying dreams of an old man whose father left when he was a boy, interspersed with passages from the POV of the father and episodes from his life.
* SliceOfLife: There is no story. There's just the dying dreams of an old man whose father left when he was a boy, interspersed with passages from the POV of the father and episodes from his life.
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* FlashForward: While most of the book is a series of flashbacks, there are a couple of flash-forwards about his wife Betsy. In one Betsy is described as tenderly caring for George's grave, and another mentions how years later she bought a retirement condo with the cash George got from clock mending, which he stashed away in deposit boxes.
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* DIYDentistry: Once a year, Howard brought supplies to Gilbert, a filthy hermit who lived in the woods. One year Gilbert comes out of the forest and shows Howard his last remaining tooth, which is badly infected. Howard has to yank it out in a messy procedure that involves a lot of blood and Gilbert passing out.
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* HistoryWithCelebrity: Gilbert the hermit claims he went to school with Creator/NathanielHawthorne. Nobody believes this, because Gilbert is a filthy, smelly hermit, and because if that were true Gilbert would have to be very very old. But after Howard does some DIYDentistry and yanks Gilbert's last tooth, he receives in the mail a pristine, signed and inscribed, first edition of ''The Scarlet Letter'' once given to Gilbert.
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* TheHermit: One part of the book has Howard remembering how once a year, while out on his rounds, he used to visit and sell supplies to an old hermit named Gilbert who lived somewhere in the woods. Eventually, one year Gilbert didn't show up for their rendezvous, and Howard reflected that there must be a pile of bones somewhere in the woods.
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* AnachronicOrder: A completely scrambled timeline, as a dying George remembers various moments from his childhood, with similarly scrambled moments from Howard's life interwoven throughout.
* DyingDream: Essentially everything in the book from George's POV, as he lays dying in his home, and memories of his past keep bubbling out of his subconscious.
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* MotorMouth: Howard's second, bigamous wife Megan. Howard's POV notes that she talked "without pause from the moment she woke." That's followed by nearly a page of her non-stop nattering, without even the benefit of punctuation.
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* MotorMouth: Howard's second, bigamous wife Megan. Howard's POV notes that she talked "without pause from the moment she woke." That's followed by nearly a page of her non-stop nattering, without even the benefit of punctuation.punctuation.
* VikingFuneral: Howard watches young George do this for a mouse, using a piece of bark as a funeral raft and soaking it with turpentine before setting it alight. Howard is reminded of the funerals of old Viking kings.
* VikingFuneral: Howard watches young George do this for a mouse, using a piece of bark as a funeral raft and soaking it with turpentine before setting it alight. Howard is reminded of the funerals of old Viking kings.
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* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Although apparently George never learned it. Howard was an epileptic given to grand mal seizures. His wife eventually decided to have him committed to an asylum, whereupon Howard immediately left town, changed his name, and had no contact with George for some 25 years.
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* CallBack: In one of the scenes from Howard's time as an itinerant peddler, he remembers getting a signed, inscribed, first edition of ''Literature/TheScarletLetter'' from a customer. Near the end, the last time George is conscious before his death, he tries to tell the family about the book but can't form the words.
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Although apparently George never learned it. Howard was an epileptic given to grand mal seizures. His wife eventually decided to have him committed to an asylum, whereupon Howard immediately left town, changed his name, and had no contact with George for some 25years.years.
* DisappearedDad: Two generations of the Crosby family.
** Howard left when George was 12 after Howard, who was an epileptic, learned that his wife was going to have him committed. He showed up unannounced at George's house over a quarter-century later, on Christmas, just to say hello.
** Howard's own father was committed when Howard was a boy, early in the 20th century, after suffering something that sounds like Alzhheimer's disease. One day Howard's father was put on a cart and taken away and Howard never saw him again.
* ItIsDehumanizing: A variation on this trope as George approaches the point of death. The narration speaks of George's body as it shuts down as "he", but then decides to call George's body "it", or rather "the it formerly he." The idea is that George's soul or consciousness or whatever actually makes him George is going somewhere else and leaving his body behind.
* MotorMouth: Howard's second, bigamous wife Megan. Howard's POV notes that she talked "without pause from the moment she woke." That's followed by nearly a page of her non-stop nattering, without even the benefit of punctuation.
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Although apparently George never learned it. Howard was an epileptic given to grand mal seizures. His wife eventually decided to have him committed to an asylum, whereupon Howard immediately left town, changed his name, and had no contact with George for some 25
* DisappearedDad: Two generations of the Crosby family.
** Howard left when George was 12 after Howard, who was an epileptic, learned that his wife was going to have him committed. He showed up unannounced at George's house over a quarter-century later, on Christmas, just to say hello.
** Howard's own father was committed when Howard was a boy, early in the 20th century, after suffering something that sounds like Alzhheimer's disease. One day Howard's father was put on a cart and taken away and Howard never saw him again.
* ItIsDehumanizing: A variation on this trope as George approaches the point of death. The narration speaks of George's body as it shuts down as "he", but then decides to call George's body "it", or rather "the it formerly he." The idea is that George's soul or consciousness or whatever actually makes him George is going somewhere else and leaving his body behind.
* MotorMouth: Howard's second, bigamous wife Megan. Howard's POV notes that she talked "without pause from the moment she woke." That's followed by nearly a page of her non-stop nattering, without even the benefit of punctuation.
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''Tinkers'' is a 2009 novel by Paul Harding.
It begins at the deathbed of George Washington Crosby, a former high school teacher and guidance counselor with a sideline in clock repair, who is dying of renal failure. As his condition deteriorates George begins to have hallucinations and strange dreams. Memories pop out of George's mind in random order, mostly dealing with his father Howard, who abandoned the family when George was 12. Other passages follow the POV of Howard, a tinker and explain why he left his family. Howard's POV eventually gets to memories of losing ''his'' father, who was taken away when Howard was a boy.
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!!Tropes:
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Although apparently George never learned it. Howard was an epileptic given to grand mal seizures. His wife eventually decided to have him committed to an asylum, whereupon Howard immediately left town, changed his name, and had no contact with George for some 25 years.
It begins at the deathbed of George Washington Crosby, a former high school teacher and guidance counselor with a sideline in clock repair, who is dying of renal failure. As his condition deteriorates George begins to have hallucinations and strange dreams. Memories pop out of George's mind in random order, mostly dealing with his father Howard, who abandoned the family when George was 12. Other passages follow the POV of Howard, a tinker and explain why he left his family. Howard's POV eventually gets to memories of losing ''his'' father, who was taken away when Howard was a boy.
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!!Tropes:
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Although apparently George never learned it. Howard was an epileptic given to grand mal seizures. His wife eventually decided to have him committed to an asylum, whereupon Howard immediately left town, changed his name, and had no contact with George for some 25 years.
