The Clock Winder

by Anne Tyler

Paperback, 1991

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Vintage (1991), 352 pages

Description

Mrs. Emerson, widowed with seven adult children, lives alone in crumbling Victorian mansion outside Baltimore with only a collection of antique clocks to keep her company. Elizabeth Abbott - twenty-three years old, aimless, bohemian, and beautiful - leads a vagabond lifestyle until she happens upon Mrs. Emerson's home and convinces the older woman to hire her as a handyman. When three of the strange, idiosyncratic Emerson children return to their childhood home for a visit, they are irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth. With wondrous observations and bittersweet humor, Tyler shows how this unsuspecting young woman becomes the North star that helps a stumbling, dysfunctional family find its footing.

User reviews

LibraryThing member benuathanasia

The characters are portrayed to be "quirky" but instead come off as second rate soap opera stars. The title of the book adds a non-existant air of mystique that was found to be of little relevance to the story; metaphorically or literally. The "climax" of the story is rushed, lacking any true tone

of foreclosure, as though the author herself grew as bored writing the book as this reader did of reading it. The ending of the story lacked coherance; suddenly changing to the perspective of a character hardly mentioned throughout the rest of the book.
Although in retrospect, it can be admitted that the swarming of cicadas in the final chapter would make a very dramatic scene in a B-rated horror movie; however, they lacked any place in this story except for very modest symbolism, with horrid timing. If they were meant to represent the inner demons of the Emersons (as I suspect they were) then they would have been much better suited in a chapter that has a more direct connection to the problems the Emerson's faced.

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LibraryThing member franoscar

could be spoilers. I'd say less Anne Tyler. It doesn't really grip you and it just goes along. There isn't a lot of motion among the characters, there is some but they are pretty aggravating and you don't get that feeling that something important happened. I didn't like it that she ended one

section saying "Matthew never wrote again" and meant it only literally, that he didn't write to her, but not that he was gone from the story. I didn't think the main character was clearly or convincingly drawn. She didn't seem to have an interior life. Or we weren't shown it but then what was the point, that she came from outside & wound the clocks of everybody, I guess.

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LibraryThing member hazelk

I'm glad that I had read the later Anne Tyler novels before I came across this early 1972 novel. There wasn't one of the Emerson family that interested me and Elizabeth Gillespie just aggravated me but more than all this I was just bored with it. On the final page little George looked at Peter

leaving "as if, every day of his life, he saw people arriving and leaving and getting sidetracked from their travels." Indeed this is what happens but I didn't care.

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LibraryThing member co_coyote

The kids have all (finally!) left home for college, so the other day I thought it was time to head down to the downstairs, where their bedrooms were, with a pitchfork and clean the place up some. What a disaster! The only bright spot in my otherwise dreary day was sorting and dusting and

rearranging the myriad books down there I had forgotten we owned. It was almost like a high-school reunion with old friends! I found this book, an early one from Anne Tyler that I must have read in the 1970s, and I couldn't remember it, so I started to read it again. It is not my favorite Anne Tyler, but you see evidence of the quirky dialog and strange, drifting characters that were to become her trademark. I guess at one time I must have owned every book Anne Tyler ever wrote, and I've always found them good for another read.

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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace

The Clock Winder could be seen as a cautionary take about what it is like to get caught up in situations beyond one's control by letting one's guard down. Elizabeth Abbott is a twenty year old drifter. Having left her North Carolina home the summer before her last year of college Elizabeth finds

herself in Baltimore, Maryland where she becomes the handyman for an elderly woman. The meeting is purely by chance. Mrs. Emerson is struggling to put away lawn furniture after firing her gardener of nearly 25 years when Elizabeth walks by and offers to help. The longer Elizabeth stays in Mrs. Emerson's employment and becomes involved with her seven children the more complicated Elizabeth's life becomes.The Clock Winder is what happens when people make lasting impressions. Just as Elizabeth has made an impression on the Emersons they have changed her life as well.

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LibraryThing member CatieN

1960s Baltimore. Mr. Emerson had clocks in every room and had a schedule for when to wind them so that they all rang out at the same time. When he died, his widow, Pamela, was at a loss as to how to keep the clocks wound and chiming simultaneously and also how to take care of everything else in her

huge house, especially after firing all of her help. Then along came Elizabeth, easygoing, friendly, a klutz, but who suddenly turns into an ace handyman/woman when working for Mrs. Emerson, surprising even herself, and she enjoys it. There are 7 Emerson children, all grown, and two of the boys, Timothy and Matthew, are attracted to Elizabeth and enjoy her company, which leads to tragedy but also, eventually, healing. Nobody does quirky characters like Anne Tyler, and Elizabeth and the Emersons don't disappoint, but it is a lovable and humorous quirkiness. An enjoyable book with memorable characters and situations.

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LibraryThing member timjones

This novel starts from an archetypal premise - that of an outsider of lower social class entering the world of a large upper-middle-class family, and the effect each has on the other - and it took me a while to warm to it; one plot twist in particular was all too predictable. But with that

exception, the book veers off in some unexpected directions, and by the end, I was very happy that I'd read it. As a bonus, it is also extremely well written.

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LibraryThing member turtlesleap

Excellent character portrayel.

LibraryThing member abbeyhar

I feel like the main character seemed fairly autistic, but the author didn't mean for it to be that way. On the whole, this was well written in some ways, but I just couldn't get into the plot line, didn't find it or character motivation believable.

LibraryThing member abbeyhar

LibraryThing member lkernagh

My first foray into Anne Tyler's books was [Digging to America], which I gave a very generous 2 stars, and promptly decided to never read another Anne Tyler book. Thanks to a certain warbler's author challenge, I decided to give Tyler one more chance. I scoured the local library's offerings and did

not like any of the story summaries until I stumbled across the one for [The Clock Winder], which gave me a fleeting nostalgic reminder of another quirky family story I had read years ago, the author and title of that story alludes me at the moment. Dysfunctional families make for wonderful storytelling, provided one doesn't go overboard or leave the reading hanging half off of cliff of expectation. Tyler has created a somewhat believable family in the Emersons - although I have to admit that Andrew is one character that seems like a random wildcard thrown in to the mix of otherwise more-or-less normal family members. I felt more of a connection with Mrs. Emerson than with Elizabeth... Elizabeth as a character did strike me as too secretive (Tyler chooses to allow Elizabeth to remain a bit of an enigma) and the ending was one of those "Say what?" moments but for the most part I was intrigued by the interaction of the various characters. As one reviewer here on LT put it, "The Clock Winder is what happens when people make lasting impressions." Favorite quote from the book: "Maybe they're right," he said. "You shouldn't hope for anything from someone that much different from your family."
"You should if your family doesn't have it," said Gillespie.Overall, I am glad to have had the opportunity to give Tyler another chance, even if a number of Anne Tyler fans feels that this is one of her poorer works. For me, it is a rough diamond that with some polish, could be quite a gem.

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LibraryThing member JosephKing6602

Great character development; likable people in real settings that the reader can empathize with. Not her best book, but still an enjoyable read!

LibraryThing member isabelx

That little closed-up family of yours is closed around nothing, thin air, all huddled up together scared to go out. Depending on someone that is like the old-maid failure poor relation you find some places, mending their screens and cooking their supper and fixing their chimneys and making peace

—oh, she ended up worse off than them. I wouldn’t move into this family for anything you paid me. You can just go on down to them and leave me be.”

I did not really enjoy this book, as it is downbeat and depressing like the characters’ lives. PJ is quite right in her assessment of Peter’s family, although realistically she could not have come to that conclusion after such a short time in their company.

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