Tin Man by Sarah Winman

Book Club Read

195 pages

Blurb

It begins with a painting won in a raffle: fifteen sunflower, hung on a wall by a woman who believes that men and boys are capable of beautiful things.

And there are two boys, Ellis and Michael, who are inseparable.

And the boys become men, and then Annie walks into their lives, and it changes nothing and everything.

Tin Man sees Sarah Winman follow the acclaimed success of When God was a Rabbit and A Year of Marvellous Ways with a love letter to human kindness and friendship, loss and living.

Or:

This is almost a love story.

Ellis and Michael are twelve when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to swim, discovering poetry, and dodging the fists of overbearing fathers. And then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more.

But then we fast forward a decade or so, to find that Ellis is married to Annie, and Michael is nowhere in sight. Which leads to the question, what happened in the years between?

This is almost a love story. But it's not as simple as that.

My thoughts

“Life was not as fun without Michael. Life was not as colourful without him. Life was not life without him. If only Ellis could have told him that then maybe he would have returned.”

Tin Man is a story about love and loss spanning thirty-three years, starting in 1963 when Ellis and Michael first meet and ending in 1996 when Ellis…. Love in all its glory. Love big enough to include more than two hearts. Love too scary to hang on too. Love too strong to every die. Love that kills and love that sustains. Love that refuses to die even when the one remaining heart no longer knows how to go on.

Tin Man is a subdued, gentle story. It’s also deeply touching and memorable. I didn’t realize I was actually picking a (mostly) gay novel when I ordered the copies for my reading group, but that’s what I did. My heart cheered and broke for Michael and Ellis. Annie was their blessing as much as their demise. Feelings, emotions, love; they never die, not even if we try to push them away and ignore them. And sometimes we need to confront those memories, relive them, and see the from a different perspective to make sense of it all, to find the courage to keep on living, to at last embrace the life we were always meant to live.

“And I remember thinking, how cruel it was that our plans were out there somewhere. Another version of our future, out there somewhere, in perpetual orbit.”

If you think the above is vague, you are right. And I’ve done that on purpose (just as I’m sure the author kept the blurb vague by design). This book is slow at revealing its secrets and it would be a dreadful shame to spoil the voyage of discovery for other readers. This story about first love, about sacrifices made, and the pain of having live with a reality that doesn’t match what would be ideal.

The story contains heartbreakingly sad moments, revealed in a language so gentle it both adds to the ache and relieves it. The story has left me with several ‘what ifs’ running through my head, but isn’t that the way life all too often plays out?

But, in the end this was a story about coming to terms with what was, and finding in that acceptance the courage and motivation to move forward. Because it is true that while none of us get to live a perfect life, all of us have the opportunity to take what life gives us and cherish those moments that were perfection.

“We all had to come out of the dark to sing.”