EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

PAUL HARDING

Paul Harding's debut is only now arriving in bookstores, from a small publisher affiliated with NYU's School of Medicine. Already Tinkers is the talk of the literary world. Publishers Weekly calls it "an especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship." In 191 incantatory pages, Harding somehow makes you intimate with three generations of a New England family. Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson raves, "It confers on the reader the best privilege fiction can afford, the illusion of ghostly proximity to other human souls." Tinkers is the first great novel of 2009.

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Recent guest blogger Louise Doughty, author of A Novel in a Year, gave out some great tips for getting started on the dream project gathering dust in your mind or desk drawer.

December 25, 2008:
Starting at the Beginning

So your New Year's resolution is to write a novel — where do you start?

Well, you can try starting at the beginning, but if that doesn't work, how about the middle, or even the end? The starting point for a novel is very rarely the first paragraph. Sometimes it's a visual image, sometimes it's a character or a story — I love staring at strangers in the street and trying to work out their stories. Ursula Le Guin once said that she created the whole strange hermaphrodite world of The Left Hand of Darkness because she wanted to use the line "The king is pregnant"....

Read the rest of Doughty's post — and while you're at it, check out our daily Book News and Review-a-Day features, Read It Before They Screen It, and more on our blog.

"Look!" a child shouted. "Fup's friends!" She pointed to the dogs and cats on the edge of the basketball court. Then she shook her finger at the backboard, where the squirrel had finally stopped talking. Perched on her father's shoulders, the girl could almost touch its tail. She said, "Now we'll see who's telling the truth."

Heads swiveled this way and that. Bear had forgotten what the Park Blocks could be like for them, being recognized by strangers they'd never seen.

"Hey, now," Oreo remarked. Attention suited him.

The squirrel was speaking to people under the basket when a voice rose from the scrum: "Speak up!" a man said. Someone near the free throw line called Zooey's name, and the big yellow Lab barked hello.

"Let's go home," Chester volunteered. Everyone ignored him.

Seconds later, the squirrel leapt high in the air. From the back of the rim, it rose a full two feet before gravity prevailed; there the squirrel appeared to float momentarily, as if deciding whether to rise or fall. Suddenly then, head tumbled over tail and down toward the pavement it dropped. The crowd gasped. Before they'd regained their breath, however, the squirrel had grabbed the rim and launched itself aloft once again. One flip, two — three flips! — followed by a perfect landing, feet planted smack on the hoop.

The crowd went absolutely wild. For a moment, they almost forgot about Zooey and the others watching from a distance.

"Scoiattolo's Traveling Circus," Bear muttered. "How long has it been?"