Jeff Charis-Carlson

From the Press Citizen

Listen: Paul Harding reading | September 26, 2013

Three years ago, Iowa City’s “Pulitzer Town” got a new resident.

No one had expected Paul Harding’s 192-page “Tinkers” even to be in the running for the Pulitzer Prize — let alone go on to win it. After all, the novel hadn’t been picked up by any of the big publishing houses — it was printed, instead, by small literary press sponsored by New York University’s School of Medicine. And the New York Times hadn’t even bothered to review it.

But the quality and power of Harding’s prose couldn’t be denied. And once the reviewers started reading it, they soon were praising the book as much for its haunting rural Maine setting as for its tale of a dying watchmaker, George Washington Crosby, whose final thoughts flash between his hospice stupor, the memories of his father, Howard, and memories of his unnamed grandfather. Read more...

Listen to the archive: Paul Harding reading | September 26, 2013