Three generations of the Crosby family live and die, but all you really need to know about Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press) is the writer’s exceptional use of language. From Howard Crosby’s notebook: “Cosmos Borealis: Light skin of sky and cloud and mountain on still pond. Water body beneath teeming with reeds and silt and trout (sealed in day skin and night skin and ice lids), which we draw out with silk threads, fitted with snags of fur or bright feathers. Skin like glass like liquid like skin; our words scrieved the slick surface (reflecting risen moon, spinning stars, flitting bats), so that we had only to whisper across the wide plate. Green drakes blossomed powder dry among the stars, glowing white, out of pods, which rose from the muck at the bottom of the pond and broke open on the skin of the water. We whispered across the galaxies, Who needs Mars?”
