Tin Man

by Sarah Winman

Shortlisted for the 2017 Costa Novel Award

Finalist for the 2019 Indies Choice Book Award: Book of the Year

Longlisted for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

Finalist for the 2019 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction

From internationally bestselling author Sarah Winman comes an unforgettable and heartbreaking novel celebrating love in all its forms and the little moments that make up the life of an autoworker in a small working-class town.

This is almost a love story. But it's not as simple as that.

     Ellis and Michael are twelve when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to swim, discovering poetry, and dodging the fists of overbearing fathers. And then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more.
     But then we fast-forward a decade or so, to find that Ellis is married to Annie, and Michael is nowhere in sight. Which leads to the question, what happened in the years between?
     With beautiful prose and characters that are so real they jump off the page, Tin Man is a love letter to human kindness and friendship, and to loss and living.

• ISBN10: 0735235155
• ISBN13: 9780735235151
• Publish Date: 15 May 2018 (first published 27 July 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: CA
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Viking
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9780735235151

Reviews

[Bianca]

I’m broken by my need for others. By the erotic dance of memory that pounces when loneliness falls.

A love letter on loss and loneliness. On longing for that kind of connection you once shared with another person, just like how the Tin Man in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was looking for the heart he lost.

[kalventure]

🎂🎉 Tin Man is available NOW!

They watched he shifting colors of the sun and the deep shadows eavesdropped on their grief, and the vivid descant of birdsong slowly muted to unimaginable silence.

This is a beautiful tale about first love, friendship, and the ebbs and flows of life. This book packs a lot into its 224 pages and details the instant and deep friendship between Ellis and Michael. This is not a linear story, and there are differing perspectives.

There are not any quotation marks for dialog, which in combination with the stream of consciousness style of writing may not be for every reader. But it works so well with this story. The prose shifts ever so slightly depending on the point of view and time period: the present is almost choppy and disjointed, while the past is more flowing and flowery prose (barring when Ellis' father is present). The monotonous and minutiae of life are highlighted in almost every line; little things at the time hold more meaning later when we recollect them.

All of it was important, he wanted to say. You were important to me, he wanted to say.

I am so glad that I stuck with this book. I will admit that I was frustrated and confused the first 12% of the book, but it slowly won me over. By the time I neared the end of Michael's narrative, I saw the beauty that Winman crafted. While we experience life in a linear fashion, we also experience life somewhat in reverse through recollection and relationships gain new meaning with additional information. This is a unique and refreshing read.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons, for the electronic ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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