FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/THE FRIDAY 56 — “ENON”

On By Laurel-Rain SnowIn book beginnings, Friday Sparks, The Friday 56

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Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

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Today I’m featuring an ARC from Amazon Vine.  Enon, by Paul Harding, is the story of a year in the life of a man coming to terms with a personal tragedy.

 

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Beginning:  Most men in my family make widows of their wives and orphans of their children.  I am the exception.  My only child, Kate, was struck and killed by a car while riding her bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September, a year ago.  She was thirteen.  My wife, Susan, and I separated soon afterward.

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56:  Houses retain traces of the people who have lived in them and I feel those traces immediately whenever I step into one.  When Susan and Kate and I looked at the few houses within our price range in Enon, there were times when my stomach soured and my head ached before i had walked through two rooms.

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Blurb:  Hailed as “a masterpiece” (NPR), Tinkers, Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize–winning debut, is a modern classic. The Dallas Morning News observed that “like Faulkner, Harding never shies away from describing what seems impossible to put into words.” Here, in Enon, 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 one of the most gifted and profound writers of his generation.

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I am eager to plunge into this emotional journey of a novel…and I will have a box of tissues handy.  Come on by with your own excerpts and links, please!

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34 thoughts on “FRIDAY SPARKS: BOOK BEGINNINGS/THE FRIDAY 56 — “ENON””

  10. Hi Laurel-Rain,

    This is another great new addition to my reading list, thanks for the feature.

    The opening passage is heartbreaking, but unfortunately an accurate analogy of what so often happens when a family is beset by tragedy. Everyone assumes it will actually bring people together, when so often, completely the reverse is true.

    Your page 56 lines are also so true. Altogether, this seems to be a book of such great perceptions and attention the foibles of the human psyche, that it can’t fail to be totally consuming and emotional for the reader.

    I hope that you enjoy this one, if that is the right word and that the writing is as good as it sounds.

    Have a great weekend,

    Yvonne

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