Enon: A Novel

By Paul Harding

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

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9780812984606

Paul Harding

PAUL HARDING has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 2010, he received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his debut novel, Tinkers. Harding lives in Georgetown, Massachusetts. Find him online at tinkerspulitzer.com.

Reviews for Enon

[wordsampersand · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderfully written novel that I will never read again.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A father attempts to cope with the accidental death of his 13-year-old daughter by roaming the fields, streets and cemeteries of his home town, fueled almost entirely by caffeine, nicotine and a vicious cocktail of painkillers, muscle relaxants, Valium and unnamed stuff scrounged from various sources. He suffers hangovers, blackouts, strange dreams/visions, and unrelenting guilt as he pushes himself ever closer to the boundary between the living and the dead, but he also remembers vividly his daughter's joyful life, his own untroubled childhood and the satisfaction of jobs well done. His brief and infrequent interactions with other human beings in the classic New England town of Enon keep him from teetering over the edge until he can get a grip and choose to go on living. As the friend who sent this book to me said, "Sad, but not depressing".

[icolford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The best writers can be forgiven for being long-winded, and based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Tinkers, and the follow-up, Enon, it's clear that Paul Harding is one of the best writers at work today. Tinkers is an intimate survey detailing the final hours of the life of George Washington Crosby as his mind wanders across the many years of his long life while he lays in bed, debilitated by age and infirmity. Enon is a continuation of sorts that focuses on George's grandson Charles. Both novels make use of a lush New England setting to ground tales that meander more or less freely while exploring memory and history. Both exhibit Harding’s mesmerizing command of the English language. The prose in Enon is every bit as spellbinding as that in Tinkers. There are abundant passages of breathtaking precision and beauty in which the world being evoked comes to life so vividly that the reader seems to enter that world and forget the book in his hand. The story it tells is a powerful one of tragedy and loss. However there is no doubt that Enon is inferior in comparison to its predecessor. Charlie Crosby’s loss of his thirteen-year-old daughter Kate—killed by a car while riding her bicycle home from the beach—is profound. His response, which combines guilt, anger, frustration and grief into a toxic mix, is believable, up to a point. But when he lets his wife Susan walk out of the house and out of his life without a fight, and lets his anguish so overwhelm him that he stops washing and allows the house to become a pigsty, and becomes addicted to painkillers and drinks himself into a stupor every night, the reader might be forgiven for growing impatient with a man who appears to be his own worst enemy. Granted, Harding makes it clear from Charlie’s memories that he doted on Kate, loved her as a father should, wanted to teach her everything he knows and wanted her to grow up curious and healthy and with a chance to make the most of her beauty and talents. But it seems something of a miscalculation for Harding to allow his protagonist to become completely unhinged by his daughter’s death. Where is his strength? Where is his resolve? Where is his instinct for what Kate would have wanted him to do? Midway through the book Charlie’s all-consuming grief takes on characteristics of an unhealthy obsession. For the reader, it makes for a claustrophobic and sometimes uncomfortable reading experience. What’s more, there are a number of lengthy passages that take place entirely in Charlie’s drug-addled imagination, in which he sees Kate in a boat at sea or backlit in a field or in other fanciful situations that, while beautifully rendered, bring the story to a grinding halt. One finishes the novel with a sense that, though not overly long, it could have been shorter. We might even wonder if a writer with a Pulitzer Prize in his pocket resisted the advice of his editors. Whatever the case, what could have been a brilliant novella—bitter and potent like an elixir—comes to us bloated and somewhat rambling. Still, the power of Harding’s prose is undeniable. His language soars when he describes the natural world. For all its faults, Enon is worth the effort of seeking it out. But it is also worth entertaining the hope that in his next novel Harding tames his proclivity for wordiness and exercises the discipline and restraint of a truly great writer.

[shetreadssoftly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Enon by Paul Harding is set in the same New England town as his Pulitzer Prize winning Tinkers. In Enon Charlie Crosby's life slowly spirals downward and falls apart after his thirteen year old daughter, Kate, is accidentally struck and killed by a van. Five days after Kate's funeral, Charlie punches a wall and breaks his hand. After taking Charlie to the emergency room, his wife, Susan, goes to stay with her family in Minnesota - and never returns. Charlie soon becomes addicted to the painkillers he has obtained for his broken hand. He is chasing his pain killers with copious amounts of whiskey in order to deal with the emotional pain and grief.

As we are privy to Charlie's thoughts, the descriptions of the world around him, the scenes he recalls, the reminiscences of past memories make the world in Charlie's mind the more tangible existence. Charlie is not just grieving. He is overwhelmed by grief. His grief has become the one reason for his existence. Even while he recalls memories from his childhood, and his life with Susan and Kate, all the memories are tinted with the anguish he feels over Kate's death. He is a man who is sacrificing himself to atone for his daughter's death. Kate was his hope for the future.

While a man's life falling apart after the tragic death of a child is a sombre subject matter, Harding's writing is exquisitely wrought and wonderfully eloquent. We can see and hear and feel everything Charlie is describing. Even while we know that his approach to mourning is self-destructive, Harding has imbibed Charlie with such articulation in his grieving. As he walks the streets and fields of Enon at night, he shares his stories. As he runs out of legal painkillers and turns to illegally obtained drugs, his behavior becomes more erratic. He is crying for help and it seems no one is listening or trying to reach him, to bring him back, to help him mourn and grieve and, hopefully, heal in a safe way.

Emotionally, Enon is not an easy novel to read. Some readers may have a hard time sympathizing with Charlie's overwhelming grief due to the dangerous choices he makes and how it overtakes his whole life. Others may tire of his self-reflection and stories. But I think that if you decide to commit to reading Enon, you will not regret it. It's not going to be light-hearted fluff, but it will open up to your scrutiny a man slowing being consumed by his grief.

Very Highly Recommended


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House via Netgalley for review purposes.

[amandanan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Excellent writing, but slightly dull.

[jkennedybalto · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm familiar with experiencing personal, heart rending loss, but less familiar with allowing that to let oneself fall into a terrible downward spiral that is this novel's main line. This book was a hard read. Perhaps that speaks to the writer's skill and integrity. Harding is a master with word choice, with verbs that pick and poke and stick, with lengthy, exploratory sentences, with a page or two trailing into dense and detailed imagining. Still this was a hard book to read. The downward spiral seemed of infinite depth, much of it anchored in life of the mind, imagination, dream, hallucination, drugs, and addiction. At times I was anxious to get back to some facts, some open-eyed, in the daylight events, to have the story move forward. I even skimmed through some of the lengthy hallucinatory pages, and considered putting the book down long before finishing. But the book never lost touch with its center. I was happy that I stuck it out. But this book was a hard read.

[elizabeth.b.bevins · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautiful tale of the process of grief.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In my opinion this novel suffers from Post-Pulitzer Syndrome. The author won the Pulitzer prize for his previous work, Tinkers, which was quite a good book. Clearly the publisher saw the $$ signs light up and knew what "Pulitzer Prize winning author" on the cover does for a book sales and they got this into print as soon as possible, despite the fact that about 50% of it is complete rubbish. Harding even included a couple of characters from Tinkers to help trade on the success of his first work. Any book editor worth his/her salt should have excised vast proportions of this manuscript but clearly Mr Harding had the credentials to push it though and the profit-driven executives at Random House just wanted any Harding book on the shelves.Unfortunately for me, the worst part of the book comes after the first 50 pages. If I had started with the rubbish part I would have invoked the Nancy Pearl rule and returned it to the library mostly unread. I was already committed, however, by the time the writing turned to mush and I felt I ought to keep reading to the bitter end. Sorry Paul, you're crossed off my list. I suggest you go back to playing the drums.

[michigantrumpet_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A gut- wrenching portrayal of bottomless, capsizing and overwhelming grief and self-loathing, suffered by Charlie Crosby upon the senseless death of his young daughter. On the surface a tale of a yearlong descent into drug addiction and petty crime. Threading throughout are mystical ruminations on ghosts, family, his ancestry, the history of Enon, and cherished memories of his childhood and his daughter. I liked that the narrative swept from topic to another in never ending streams of consciousness and hallucinatory reality. Deep grief is rarely well organized or rational, so this rang true to me. Multiple generations of Crosbys (familiar to readers of "Tinkers") have populated the mythical New England town of Enon. Charlie has spent his entire life there. That no one stepped in to help was less convincing. Wonderful characterizations, particularly of Charlie's grandfather and the widow in the large house. Mine was an audiobook narrated by the author. Perhaps a professional actor would have rescued this from the one note dirge of grief.

[garyseverance-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enon by Paul Harding is a novel about personal loss experienced terribly in a safe environment. Charlie Crosby descended from a multi-generational family living in an area of New England that was an important stage for events in American history. The Crosbys have lived for hundreds of years in Enon, a rural town connected originally via Post Road to Boston. Charlie always had a sense of belonging and personal importance because of his heritage, appreciation of the land and wildlife, and willingness to spend his life laboring in the beautiful countryside of the Enon River. His strong but incomplete identity is destroyed by the unpredictable death of a family member, his own contribution to the long line of Crosbys.All stability in Charlie's life falls apart in his mind resulting in withdrawal from people and actions that were important to him, though he did not appreciate them before the death of his daughter. He withdraws emotionally from his wife, coworkers, and friends and tries in vain to create a lyrical to the land and legends of Enon. Wandering around the town in the late night/early morning like a ghost of America's past, Charlie experiences physical pain from a self-inflicted injury brought on by a token gesture. Self-medicating his wound with pain pills and whiskey, the scion of a proud family indulges in a sham of addiction (the physical dependence is real) trying to find meaning in his life by chasing memories of growing up in a stable tradition. Of course, Charlie knows he is play acting at grief and indulging in a half-baked addiction drawing down his treasure of connection with family and the natural richness of the Enon area.Harding has created an interesting portrait of a man who knows he is acting foolishly in the context of his personal history and the legacy of life in Enon. Will Charlie give up his romantic attachment to important life values that he always knew about but never made the effort to understand realistically? If so, will he find an essential separate peace in the land of his ancestors? I recommend that you read this good novel of a man too insightful to remain "not himself" for very long.

[strandbooks_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this book difficult. The subject matter is hard, but the lack of humanity was the hardest part. A man is in the small town he grows up in and his daughter is killed in a terrible accident. His wife, a teacher, leaves and gives up trying to contact him when he unplugs his cell phone. He falls apart with no one in the town intervening, even when he has become addicted to drugs. Harding's writing is poetic while I'm reading it, but I forget it, maybe because the characters don't seem real to me. I read Tinkers but I couldn't tell you 1 thing about it a year later.

[jessicamhill · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

With little action, but much insight into human nature, Enon follows Charlie, the primary character, as he reacts to a life-changing tragedy. Harding succeeded in making me feel totally immersed in the town of Enon and into Charlie's struggles, but at the same time, he showed me just how self-centered a reader I am. I had trouble relating to Charlie and his decisions. My lack of interest coupled with the dense prose made this a rather slow read. When I finally made it to the end, I found a beautiful and moving resolution and was happy to see some character development had occurred.

[sapporo_2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

There is some beautiful nature writing in Enon, Paul Harding's follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers, but the story of Charlie Crosby's grief is marred by mawkishness and tinny dialogue. One wants to like the book; Charlie is a sympathetic character and Harding, who seems to be trying hard to write something serious here, a sympathetic author. But his efforts are not enough, everything feels artificial save the nature descriptions, while scenes between humans (and Charlie's memories of his dead daughter) seem more appropriate for a Lifetime movie than for literary fiction.

[spacmann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although I think the novel is well-written, I abandoned the story about half-way through. The mood is somber - I can't say anything about the resolution of the story.

[sharlene_w · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While the topic was potentially depressing, the book was well written and insightful. There was a raw realism to the writing and I felt like I understood and was empathetic with the character.

[bettewhitley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Having read the wonderful reviews of Harding's Tinkers (but the not the book itself), I was delighted to receive Enon as an early reviewer selection. My delight turned, however, to bewilderment about halfway through the novel. At it's beginning, the story is compelling, detailing the accidental death of a much loved only child. The prose is a pleasure, and the first person account convincing, but too quickly, it becomes weighed down with wordiness, and seemingly pointless, detailed descriptions of the history and toppography of the town of Enon.In fairness, Charlie, the father of the deceased Kate, deteriorates in a way that may accurately recpresent the descent into hopelessness and despair following the death of a loved one. His long, sometimes bizarre, ramblings may, in fact, give the reader insight into the depths of grief that seem to have no resolution and no end. For me, the book went on too long and said too little, although, it certainly has its merits. The language, dialogue and imagery made the beginning and end worth reading.

[curls_99 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Paul Harding continues the story of the Crosby family in the small, New England town of Enon by picking up with Tinker's George Crosby's grandson Charlie. The book follows Charlie through a year in his life after a devastating tragedy. It explores the raw reality of prescription drug abuse and the descent into madness it can cause. If you enjoy Paul Harding's word, frenetic style, you will enjoy this book. I find it to be a bit flowery and hard to follow. The vast majority of the book is so hopeless I found it difficult to continue to the end.

[signrock · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

LT Early Reviewer's Edition,Although this was far from an easy read, it was one I definitely enjoyed. There were times when I wanted to smack the main character upside the head, and tell him to get it together. There were also many questions as to what was really going on around him. Is it possible that everyone knew his situation but no one said anything? The fact that these things continued to trouble me reminded me that the story had touched a nerve. There are some things that should be clarified, but worth the read.

[corgiiman · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The first word that came to mind when I finished this book was improbable. I found nothing I could relate to in this main character. Sometimes it seemed like the author got a thesaurus and started picking out words. Maybe I just don't get this author, didnt care for Tinker either. I had to force myself to keep reading in several places.

[perednia_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Paul Harding's first novel, Tinkers, appeared to have captured lightning. It was a small book published by a small press. It was the story of an old man dying in his living room, thinking of his family who came before and who followed him. It also was a brilliant, eloquent, poetic, unflinching look at love, family and flawed human beings who deserve admiration and forgiveness. It won the Putlizer in one of those instances where the winner honored the award.Harding's second novel mines similar territory and, similarly, captures lightning. Charlie Crosby is the grandson of George Crosby from Tinkers. He has suffered the tragedy of Kate, his young daughter, dying when her bicycle is struck by a distracted mom chauffering her own children. Charlie knows he is sinking into oblivion but he is too filled with despair to change.The year following his daughter's death is a portrait of relentless grief. No matter where his mind may wander -- remembering times spent with his beloved grandfather or adored daughter -- Charlie always comes crashing back to the realization that Kate is gone. Not even the painkillers and booze keep that knowledge at bay for long.There is a quietness in Harding's beautiful prose that permeates this study of a New Englander who loves his hometown nearly as much as he loves his daughter. That quietness, that underlying awareness that knowledge and strength can come to those who persevere, help turn this portrait of sorrow into one of the fullness of life.

[beamis12 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I had to argue with myself, well who better to argue with, on how to rate this book. A part of me, the part that loves beautiful prose and intense emotion wanted to give this a four, but the part that thought he wandered a little to far afield for my liking, with the main part of the story wanted to give it a three. Well, surprise, surprise I won. But now everyone knows the reason for the three stars. At the beginning of this book, Charlie's daughter Kate is killed by a car, while crossing the street. This is a story of such searing grief, a man who feels he has nothing left to live for now that his daughter has gone. He is unable to function in any normal way, just goes over and over the places he and his daughter used to go in the town they lived. The prose is powerful, beautiful and vivid. I just wished some of the side trips were not so lengthy. A book that is definitely worth reading, and readers who have more patience than I will love this book. I am glad I read it just to experience the wonderful prose.

[clajill · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as an early review. I loved the way Paul Harding is able to commit the thoughts of Charlie in first person. But I felt that it went on for too long and it was not able to hold my attention after 100 pages. I did finish the book and had very mixed feeling about the ending. I felt a need for more substance at the end after following Charlie's decline for a whole year.

[mimal_5 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

net-galley, autumn-2013, published-2012Read from September 07 to 09, 2013Uncorrected proof ARC from Random House. Many thanks.Opening: Most men in my family make widows of their wives and orphans of their children.Charlie Crosby's descent into drugs and alcohol following his daughter's death is painful to read, however this tragic story is beautifully rendered.Not having read Harding's Pulitzer winning novel Tinkers, I have to rely on others to tell me that Enon is set in the same town.The writing is wonderful and one of the best examples of first person narrative I've run across, usually it is such a confining mode.A quick read at only 256 pages.Crossposted: Goodreads, NetGalley, Anobii, LibraryThing2 likes

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The center-point of this novel is the tragic death of the protagonist's 13 year old daughter when she is hit by a car while riding her bike. Charlie Crosby immediately breaks his hand by hitting a wall, his marriage falls apart, and he enters a downward spiral that lasts a full year. His descent is painful to read, with its drug-induced fantasy life, its squalor, and self-destruction. Harding's style is interesting in its quick shifts from clear narrative to very long stream of consciousness, sometimes lyrical, sometimes just confusing.

[sullytj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is no doubt that Paul Harding writes in descriptive, lyrical prose that evokes vivid images in the mind. As many others have noted, this book did not have a typical plot but rather focused on the devastating effects of Charlie Crosby's grief in the year following his daughter's accidental death. I found the writing profound and wonderful, but agree that at times it was overwhemlming and difficult to wade through all the descriptive adjectives and long sentences. Every memory or experience is deeply linked to location and the town of Enon features prominently in this novel. I appreciated this book as a work of skilled writing and construction, but at times my attention waned and it felt more like a chore to work through certain parts. One part that struck a chord with me was when Charlie attempts to work through his loss as some sort of macabre math problem, trying to factor some slight chance of hope into the equation. Overall, I enjoyed this book, however, readers should be aware that it is certainly no light, quick read. You must be willing to just live in the prose instead of seeking a linear plot structure with definitive resolution. It is worth the read, in my opinion.

[thetwods · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Following up his Pulitzer winning Tinkers, Paul Harding again delivers a lyrical, descriptive narrative in his inimitable style - a literary form of pointilism, if you will. Describing everything in immense detail, down to the way the grass moves in the wind, he tells the tale of Charlie Crosby, grandson of Tinkers' protagonist George Crosby, and the long descent his life takes following the tragic death of his teenage daughter. Make no mistake, those of you who have studied psychology or social work, this is textbook complicated grief. The pain Charlie feels is transferred to the reader through Harding's prose; the agony, the withdrawal from society, the self-inflicted wounds and the addiction.Yet in the midst of the bleakness, scintillating sentences still ring out. Describing the mansion he visits with his grandfather to repair a rare clock:"I wondered how many kitchens there could be, whether the huge outer house contained several others, nested one inside another, like Russian dolls, each smaller and more primitive than the one immediately encapsulating it, until, arriving at the center, one would find a mud hut, and in the middle of its earth floor a charred depression in which sat ashes, dead to appearance, but from which the gentle breath from someone kneeling in the dirt and putting his face to them, close enough to whisper a confession, would arouse an orange ember, crystalline, nuclear, at the very heart of Enon's greatest virtues and its innermost corruptions." (p.62)Again, the minutiae of clock repair plays a part, though not to the extent of Tinkers. Here, Charlie helps his grandfather repair a colonial era grandfather clock:"The old air fell out of the clock, dry, held in the cubic shape of the case for who knows how many years until I opened the door and it collapsed out into the contemporary atmosphere, distinct and nearly colonial for a moment and then subsumed, and I wondered how old it was..." (p.63)Describing the hours before a hurricane crashes ashore, the atmospheric fireworks become metaphoric for Charlie's own agitated system:"It felt as if I were the only man on earth, as if I were floating through some uninhabited, primeval realm. Only jellyfish and I would watch the vast nets of lightning being cast across the sky above and the rains churning the ceiling of our watery kingdom into sizzling, unmappable topographies, and hear the muted roaring of the winds over the face of the water, and watch with our simple eyes the atmosphere cooking and boiling and synthesizing itself so that when the storm quieted and passed and the sun shone back down on us, we would step onto the sand with our brand-new feet and walk out of the carbonated surf, onto the fern-littered shore. What was that first clot of plasma not merely cooked by lightning? What colloidal smudge shivered and convulsed at the charge for an instant? What Adamic fleck of aspic was that? What first, shocked self that then became the first corpse?"Any fears that Harding could not live up to his dazzling debut are put to rest.

[pickle115 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I had heard of Mr Harding's Tinkers but never took the time to read it. I had heard good things. Between that and the pull of a book that can invoke an emotional reaction from me, I requested Enon. I wanted to really like it from the beginning and like it I did. But I didn't really like it. At times, it felt like a chore to continue on. And I never like my reading to feel like work. I will give Tinkers a try and let that determine if I am a future Harding fan.

[bonniemarjorie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

'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.'Enon opens in tragedy. Charlie Crosby misses a life changing phone call from his wife: his only daughter has been hit by a car and died. His struggle to deal with the grief is bad enough but shortly after his wife leaves him as well. Without his wife and daughter in his life he has lost all reason for living. He becomes the very epitome of pain and suffering. He has no one to share this grief with so he internalizes everything and by doing so sends himself on a downward spiral.Enon is imbued with a suffocating grief that threatens to swallow you whole. The story meanders down a twisting path, lacking any linear pattern but instead forging it's own self-destructive path. I understand the purpose behind the lack of a solid plot as I felt it was representative of Charlie's mindset, but I was still anticipating something monumental to happen. A moment of major significance. But it just didn't happen. The first person point of view gave the book a very monotone feel despite how emotional you would expect it to be. I think this is a story that will speak to many people, but it almost seems like something you need to be going through personally in order to fully understand, appreciate and relate. Enon portrays just how all-consuming grief can be, especially when you allow it to overtake you.

[cyderry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

13 year old Kate is killed while bicycling home from the beach. The reader follows the downward spiral of her father's life after this event.I guess I was hoping that this would be an uplifting story of a father's love for a child lost too early in life. But, I only found a whiny character and a depressing story.

[mposey82 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An exercise in loss and remembrance. The viscosity of emotion in "Enon" is such that the reader is entombed in the loss of its protagonist Charlie Crosby. Paul Harding takes you deep into the emotional anguish of Charlie in a way that is rare in a novel. The text resides in the emotional state of character being barely cognizant of there own emotional timbre. Empaths be fairly warned.In "Enon" Paul Harding takes us a Charlie Crosby flails in a swamp of grief, as the year after the death of his middle school aged daughter Cate proceeds inevitably forward. In the time covered we see a man who embodies not comprehending how to deal with grief. If you want a manual on what behavior to not emulate, during emotional hardship, Mr. Harding is offering many examples. A common characteristics of Charlie's expression of grief revolved around different forms of self-violence. These acts of self violence range from, the perhaps expected, emotional violence preceding the dissolution of the relationship with his wife, or the simple act of abandoning basic grooming. From there we descend into a valley of more serious self inflicted physical violence and drug dependence. The book is relentless in its abuse of Charlie. While there is some form of eventual redemption; it comes abruptly enough to feel cursory and barley relevant to the "why" of the book. There is also little structure given as to why this particular person would fall so hard. But perhaps this is part of the point. There doesn't need to be a reason. While the overall arc of Charlie's life is not presented as being one of ease or free of conflict. Neither is his life prior to the events of "Enon" presented in a way that suggests Charlie would be so susceptible to an utter collapse of self. Taken purely as a glimpse into the psyche of a character during a stressful time the book succeeds. The weight of Charlie's suffering is tangible and painful. While I would not call this second-hand suffering enjoyable, it was inarguably artful. It reminds the reader how truly shaken a life can be during a trauma and was a powerful exercise in encouraging empathy. Reminding the reader that you do not know the mind of those around you; what loss they struggle with or what demons haunt them. Not the most uplifting take away but a valuable one that could help ease many an interaction for those who keep it in consideration.