Enon
A Novel
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3.8 • 40 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR BY
The Wall Street Journal • American Library Association • Kirkus Reviews
A stunning allegorical novel about one man’s enduring love for his daughter
In Enon, Paul Harding follows a year in the life of Charlie Crosby as he tries to come to terms with a shattering personal tragedy. Grandson of George Crosby (the protagonist of Tinkers), Charlie inhabits the same dynamic landscape of New England, its seasons mirroring his turbulent emotional odyssey. Along the way, Charlie’s encounters are brought to life by his wit, his insights into history, and his yearning to understand the big questions. A stunning mosaic of human experience, Enon affirms Paul Harding as “a contemporary master and one of our most important writers” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
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“Harding conveys the common but powerful bond of parental love with devastating accuracy. . . . [He] is a major voice in American fiction.”—Chicago Tribune
“Paul Harding’s novel Tinkers won the Pulitzer Prize; its stunning successor, Enon, only raises the bar.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Extraordinary . . . a darkly intoxicating read . . . [Harding’s] prose is steeped in a visionary, transcendentalist tradition that echoes Blake, Rilke, Emerson, and Thoreau.”—The New Yorker
“So wild and riveting it’s practically an aria . . . Harding is a superb stylist.”—Entertainment Weekly
“[Charlie’s grief], shaped by a gifted writer’s caressing attention, can bring about moments of what Charlie calls ‘brokenhearted joy.’”—The Wall Street Journal
“Astonishing . . . a work of fiction that feels authentic as memoir.”—Financial Times
“Read Enon to live longer in the harsh, gorgeous atmosphere that Paul Harding has created.”—San Francisco Chronicle
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawing upon the same New England landscape and family as his Pulitzer Prize winning debut Tinkers, Harding deftly captures loss and its consequences in this gorgeous and haunting follow-up. The novel opens with a grieving Charlie Crosby (grandson of Tinkers protagonist George Washington Crosby) attempting to come to terms with the death of his daughter, Kate, and the subsequent dissolution of his marriage. Although the narrative is rendered through Charlie's voice, the phenomenal prose on which Harding has staked his name comes out authentically, especially in the book's darkest and most introspective moments: "I felt like a ghost, listless and confined, wandering in a house that had been mine a century ago, relegated to examining the details of the lives of strangers." While the novel's first half is mired in the cyclical self-obsession and self-hatred of grief, and slows to a crawl for a few too many flashbacks, Charlie's eventual substance abuse and resulting hallucinations allow Harding to let his prose loose as he delves into the deepest aspects of loss and regret. Offering an elegiac portrait of a severed family and the town of Enon itself, Harding's second novel again proves he's a contemporary master and one of our most important writers.
Customer Reviews
Enon
You'll either love it or hate it. Intense and haunting.
Bizarre, ghoulish and heartbreakingly depressing
Bizarre, ghoulish and heartbreakingly depressing