[I've been
reading]
Tinkers

I probably wouldn’t have touched this book if I had known what it was about. I finished it and loved it before I realized it had won a Pulitzer. It was great in that “I don’t normally like books like this” sort of way. It’s a set of family stories told through the mind and eyes of a dying man. It’s thick with pathos, even as the various stories are full of all sorts of life. The most similar author I thought of was Annie Proulx, a lot of bleak characters, stuck in intractable messes, full of longing. A great short book, pick it up even if you think you don’t usually like this sort of thing.