Work of art: a "Tin Man" review
There are so many things out in the world that can be considered art. Move beyond the beautiful paintings and sculptures, and you'll find other examples that surprise you. There are theatre performances, movie cinematography, frames in anime, and even prose in a book that can count.
Enter Tin Man by Sarah Winman. Originally published in 2017 in Britain, this quiet novel received praise from a trusted reviewer on Goodreads. Intrigued by its eloquent writing and focus on queer characters, I added it to my TBR and didn't think much of it until my grandmother loaned me her copy. Surprised by its length and finding the e-audiobook through the library near my college, I snatched it up and began to read.
Like the van Gogh painting at its center, Sarah Winman's third novel is delicate and soft, reaching deep to a beautiful emotional core. Tin Man's exploration of friendship, its evolution to love, and the power of memories and motivation makes a statement without feeling heavy-handed. With sparse but rich writing, specific characterization, compelling dialogue, and immediacy so profound it broke my heart, Winman brings its pieces back together again. This story of relationships, uneasy childhoods, and the beauty of art found in nature and within ourselves is truly something special, worthy of being read and shared with all.
One night, a young woman by the name of Dora Judd wins a raffle and chooses a copy of a van Gogh sunflower painting as her prize. Her husband, enraged that she didn't go for the whiskey, tries to attack her as soon as he gets home. She prevents him for doing so, threatening to kill him if he lays a hand on it. She'll move into the spare room if he respects it. He does, and the painting stays hung up until she dies.
Fast forward almost forty years later. In 1996, Ellis Judd works nights at a car mechanic shop and spends his days sleeping in. Five years ago, his wife died in a car accident, and he's spent that time going through the motions of his life. Everyone he knows is at an arm's distance, and not many know about his past. As a kid, he dreamed of being an artist, but his father forced him to succeed his role in the shop. Ellis doesn't mind it; after all, he's attempting to shove down memories, which resurface after a near-miss with a car. It takes him off the job and confronts him with his past, a time when he and a boy named Michael would swim together, hang out above the antique shop together, and carve an intimate space only they could inhabit. But there was a time when Michael vanished from his life, leaving him and Annie, his wife, floored. They were a tight-knit threesome who told each other everything, so what happened? Ellis will soon find out, and the revelations will lead him to his own reflection.
Long story short: this was a fantastic book. Tin Man is only 213 pages, but it packs quite a punch in a short amount of time. While the previous book I reviewed, Point of View, has power but feels like the beginning, Tin Man is something complete. Its depth is astounding, the pages filled with a well-realized cast and emotive presence. Every sentence feels profound, every realization something for the reader to take to heart as well. Yet it's so effortless despite the amount of work it took Winman to put this novel together (based on her acknowledgements, this was the book that signed her with her agent ten years prior to publication).
The story is a quiet one, letting its plot run beneath its characters and lush literary writing. However, that doesn't mean the writing compensates for poor plot. It's strong regardless. Watching Ellis's monotony get broken by visits from his wife's ghost, the accident, and then flashbacks of his time with Michael paralleled with him breaking out of his shell, is fascinating. Winman has a way of making each moment matter through detail that envelops a reader, helped by a personal audiobook narrated by her. Its simpleness helps elevate it, allows it to take shape in a reader's imagination as they hop from place to place in Ellis's life. The nonlinear structure at points and narrative switch between third-person Ellis and first-person Michael create a world that sticks, and it doesn't need grandiose climactic moments or precise character arcs to make that happen.
It helps that Ellis and crew have a lot of charm to them as well. Although starting as a passive protagonist, Ellis cracks out of his shell and blossoms into a considerate soul. Watching his journey is sad but hopeful, especially to see him regain the spark that was lost because of his dad, who seems to accept him more than he did when he was a kid (repentance/forgiveness, perhaps). Hearing from Michael in the journal Ellis finds reveals much more behind the charismatic and passionate kid Ellis grew attached to. Michael becomes a fuller picture, someone who cared for Ellis in a way he never experienced afterwards, his first love and heartbreak. He tried to recapture that flame with countless lovers, but nothing was the same. Annie's vividness and wit explain a lot of why she and Ellis ended up together, and her support of Michael through his mixed emotions and side outings (gay bar, anyone?) is sweet and uniting. You can tell why Ellis fell in love with her after Michael, and I like that Michael treated her with the respect she deserved and not like she was a rival for his affection for Ellis. The other characters, including Ellis's resilient mother, Michael's sweet adoptive mother, Ellis's stepmom that was the product of an affair, and Ellis's dad and his evolution, are welcome inclusions. You see how they touch the lives of the boys and feel the loss when they go.
Winman's writing, however, is the real deal. Her prose is refined and elegant, relying on crisp detail to make it work. The dialogue has no quotation marks, but it flows into attributions and description well. The two factors meld to create a narrative that's emotional and captivating, and it's what kept me going with this novel along with everything else. It makes everything immediate.
Tin Man is a winner of a novel. With lush writing that doesn't sacrifice the subtlety of its plot and a great cast of characters, Sarah Winman has crafted a short but moving story about grief, art, and how memories make us stronger. It's a beautiful little book perfect for your collection, and it'll make your heart ache in a way that you'll appreciate.