The Clock Winder

Rating:
Summary: Another winner from Anne Tyler
Review: A typically Tyler-ish large and largely dysfunctional family is set all a-twitter by the arrival of an outsider, Elizabeth. Like all of Tyler's books and its characters, this one deserves to be read, savored, smiled over, and handled with tender compassion.

Rating:
Summary: An early Anne Tyler, and still one of her very best
Review: Anne Tyler's "The Clock Winder" is the story of Elizabeth Abbott, a sort of aimless 20-year old girl taking a year off from college. When Elizabeth wanders into the lives of the Emerson family, she becomes, as Mrs. Emerson so tellingly describes things early in the book, "the center of the asterisk."

Elizabeth is trying to earn money to go back to college for her senior year--even though "my grades were rotten"--and on her way to interview for a long-term babysitting job, she ends up helping Pamela Emerson move some porch furniture. Mrs. Emerson asks her to stay on as a handyman, to replace the one she fired that morning, and Elizabeth cheerfully agrees as long as she can "live in." This innocent beginning to the story belies the complexities and emotional connections that are made and broken in the rest of the book.

Without giving away too much of the plot to those who've never had the pleasure of reading it, it's safe to say that Elizabeth's presence has an emotional impact on several of Mrs. Emerson's sons--one of whom feels strongly enough about her that he does something terrible. This is the event which finally completes Elizabeth's long metamorphosis from determinedly carefree, irresponsible girl to full-grown woman--a woman who understands, finally, the effect that one person can have on another without even meaning to.

The writing is superb and the plot develops organically, fully, and with a resolution which makes perfect sense. Anne Tyler was in full control of her considerable gifts back in 1972 when she wrote this, and aren't we lucky that she was!

Rating:
Summary: Another delightful stroll in Tylerland
Review: Anne Tyler's range of characters, locations and plots is very limited. She appears to have been rehashing the same few characters and crazy plots for thirty years. I can't think of any relationships in any of the books that was wholly convincing and I have been irritated by the start or end of virtually all the books, yet ...for some inexplicable reason I adore her novels. From any other writer I'd be annoyed by the lack of variety from book to book, but with Tyler I just sit there reading with a grin on my face, thrilled and delighted by this brave, brilliant novelist. I can't think of a better North American writer working today. The Clock Winder has the usual collection of improbable plot twists and oddball people - another large dysfunctional family shaken up by an outsider, in this case the divine Elizabeth (one of my favourite Tyler characters). Reading the first few pages transported me quickly back to Tylerland which is both a geographical region stretching from Maryland to North Carolina (capital city: Baltimore) and a region of the mind. This is one of the most enjoyable of Anne Tyler's many books.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Tyler
Review: As with all Tyler novels, The Clock Winder is full of quirky, odd and lovable characters. While there is not much action in her stories, the writing is so well done and the characters so fully developed, by the end of her novels, you always feel like a part of the family. Such is the case with The Clock Winder.

When the novel opens, Mrs. Emerson is a recent widow, who seems to aimlessly go about her days, always keeping up her image and trying to stay in tune with her grown children's lives. Never meaning harm, Mrs. Emerson seems to stress her children out, and doesn't seem to understand how she is affecting them. When she fires her lifelong handyman, she stumbles by chance upon young Elizabeth and before she knows it, Elizabeth is tangled up in the lives of the Emerson family.

The rest of the novel details how Elizabeth is affected by the family, and they by her. Tyler's writing is so poignant, while not much is really happening, so much is actually happening. This is a book that Tyler fans won't be disappointed in~

Rating:
Summary: The Clock Winder
Review: Elizabeth is perhaps Anne Tyler's most fascintating and aggravating characters. Just when you think she is going to do one thing, she does another. The Emerson family involves her in their lives in a way that makes one almost afraid to put the book down for fear of missing something. I loved this book and highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Populated by the most wonderfully quirky people!
Review: The Clock Winder, is one of Anne Tyler's best. I have fallen in love with all the quirky characters who inhabit her books.

I am particularly moved by Elizabeth Abbot, in this story, who enters as a stranger on the periphery and is metamorphosed into the essential core of the Emerson family.

Though each of the characters displays an array of idiosyncracies, some charming and others downright sinister, Elizabeth the "Handyman" reveals the beauty of simply being the best version of yourself on the planet!

This is lovely, rich material and a delight to read. Be warned: Ms. Tyler is addictive, you will never be able to read just one of her novels!