Tin Man

Sarah Winman somehow manages to infuse her latest with a pervading sense of melancholia. Her words are the long shadows of a late fall afternoon stretching across the page. I mean I love me some of that bittersweet and this book offers up just the right dose of it.

We meet Ellis, trudging through his days at the factory. He's lost his wife and best friend in a car accident 5 years ago and the life of color and imagination his mother might have wished for him died with her as he becomes the man his father demanded.

All he has left are faded photographs, fond memories, and the journal of his best friend. It sounds like it could easily devolve into TV movie bathos but Winman keeps a steady hand on the wheel and keeps it short. Gorgeous.