Tinkers

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Discussion Questions

Character Analysis

George Washington Crosby

George Washington Crosby is the protagonist of Tinkers and his deathbed ruminations provide the memories that comprise the plot of the novel. In his final days, he is surrounded by his loving family and his accomplishments as a skilled clock repairperson. Like his father before him, he is a tinker who takes great joy in his work, though George specifically fixes clocks and his father fixed all sorts of broken objects. Clocks are so important to George that he associates his own mortality with them; he is comforted by the clocks’ ticking, feeling like “the blood in his veins and the breath in his chest seemed to go easier as he heard the ratchet and click of the springs being wound and the rising chorus of clocks, which did not seem to him to tick but to breathe” (45). George associates himself so closely with his clocks that he experiences their ticking as mirroring his own breathing lungs and beating heart, though he is constantly aware that his life is winding down even as time goes on.

Beside his deep attachment to his clocks, George is also very concerned about his family. He cares deeply for them and provides for them, ensuring that his wife and family will have enough money after his death. He fosters strong connections with his children and grandchildren. Even when he works on repairing clocks, his thoughts often turn to his family, as he worries about “their winter clothes and their new roofs, their failing transmissions and foundering marriages, their fifth years at private colleges” (176). George is keenly aware of their financial struggles and the money he makes from his post-retirement job as a clock repairperson is intended to help his family. While he enjoys the work immensely, he is motivated to repair clocks so he can help his family—they are all he thinks about as he goes about his tasks. George’s love for them is returned by his family; they provide companionship and comfort in his dying hours, never leaving him alone.

George’s preoccupation with family stems from his own childhood and the complicated relationship he had with his father. When George was 12, his father, Howard, left the family one day with no warning. George felt betrayed and confused by this, which pushes him to be an involved family person since he doesn't want his family to feel the same pain that he did. On his deathbed, George tries “burrow” himself in memories so he can see his father one more time. George’s final wish is to resolve his hurt and anger from his childhood as he tries to understand his father’s actions. In his last moment, he thinks back on a pleasant memory from when his father came on a surprise visit one Christmas, when George was an adult; as he dies, George gets his wish to see his father again.

Howard Aaron Crosby

Howard is George’s father and the narrator of some sections of the novel as George sinks farther back into his memories. Howard is a tinker who takes pride and joy in his ability to fix broken objects and make beautiful things with his hands. He also loves his family and tries to use his tinkering abilities to bring his family happiness, such as when he brings his wife, Kathleen, flowers that he has woven together: He carefully watches “her surprise and her usual anger and then that anger turning back to surprise and then into delight as he took his tapestry of grass and flowers from behind his back and put it in her hands” (74). However, these moments of joy are few and far between as his epilepsy forces a divide between Howard and his family. After he unintentionally bites George in the midst of a seizure, Kathleen considers committing him to a state hospital, and Howard leaves the family when he finds out about her plan.

Howard feels deep pain at this turn of events. He cannot even bear to think about leaving his family since “[that] act would have been too terrible for him, to contemplate and then commit. So, he [does] not contemplate it. He simply [leaves], and then [finds] that he [has] done so” (131). Howard leaves without saying anything to his family since saying goodbye would mean that he is acknowledging his actions, and he finds the act of leaving “too terrible” to even think about. Howard’s decision to leave his family is motivated by his refusal to be committed and the powerless he feels about his epilepsy—he believes he is bringing his family more pain just by staying with them. Howard’s act of selflessness and love ends up hurting young George deeply, who cannot understand why Howard would leave without a word. Even on his deathbed, this is the memory that haunts George. Despite their estrangement, Howard and George share their interest in tinkering and their deep love for their families, showing how the novel’s theme of Family History and Generational Legacy plays out.

Kathleen Crosby and Megan Lightman

Kathleen and Megan are both Howard’s wives that he marries at different times in his life, and they act as foils to each other. Kathleen, his first wife, lives with him in Maine and raises their four children. She is very religious and often severe toward the children and Howard. She criticizes Howard’s work and his ability to earn money, and she treats his seizures as a shameful secret that they hide even from their children. Kathleen is harsh and strict with her children, which stems from her feelings “of resentment, of loss” when she sees them every day, since she feels motherhood was forced on her when she wasn’t ready for it (99). Kathleen spends the entirety of her day with the children and feels stifled; Howard, on the other hand, is out in the world, tinkering and making sales, and she resents his freedom. Kathleen never coddles her children, and she believes this will make them tough and resilient. George, however, craves her affection and dreams of her embracing him.

When Howard arrives in Philadelphia and begins a new life, he marries Megan, who is very different from Kathleen. Megan is kind and patient with Howard’s seizures. Like Kathleen, she, too, consults a doctor about his seizures; but rather than deciding, like Kathleen, that the only solution is to commit Howard to an institution, Megan seeks medication to help reduce the frequency of his seizures. Rather than perceiving Howard as an inconvenience, like Kathleen did, Megan loves and respects him and seeks to bring him comfort. Even in their everyday interactions, Megan is open and easy to talk to and Howard is grateful for this, which is a contrast from Kathleen’s “brackish silences, silences that broke like thin ice beneath you to announce your drowning” (184). Kathleen’s silences exacerbated Howard’s anxieties and insecurities, and he is deeply appreciative of the much happier relationship he has with Megan. Howard’s wives are wholly different from each other and represent the two halves of his lives, one dominated by sorrow and judgment, while the other is filled with personal and professional happiness.