Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
The Carpenter
by
Matt Lennox
The Carpenter is set in a God-fearing small Ontario town in the 1980s, a town rife with secrets, grudges passed through the generations and an undercurrent of criminal behaviour. Lee King, the carpenter, is returning after a lengthy stay in maximum-security prison to a community that still recalls his horrendous crime. His mother is dying, and he wants to see her and his s...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
February 28th 2012
by Phyllis Bruce Books
(first published January 1st 2012)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
103)
19oct12 - wow. that hurt. this book is a raw, hard gut-punch. i will be seeing/meeting lennox in two days, as part of the IFOA - international festival of authors - running in toronto. i am trying to think of the place he was writing from with this story. and i am having a bit of an ache in my heart that this depth of emotional pain is familiar (for very different reasons) and sorry that someone else (many other someones) is (are) sitting with this experience and knowledge. there are relatable m...more
Mar 04, 2013
Brittany
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Fans of can lit / people studying writing
How I Came To Read This Book: A copy if it mysteriously showed up in my mailbox. I read it so I could review it and give another copy away through my blog.
The Plot: Leland King has just served 17 years of hard time, and is returning to his hometown - the very place where his unspeakable crime was committed - to be with his dying mother. In that same town we meet Lee's nephew, a high school dropout named Pete that seems to have his head on straighter than most of the folks around him (except of c...more
The Plot: Leland King has just served 17 years of hard time, and is returning to his hometown - the very place where his unspeakable crime was committed - to be with his dying mother. In that same town we meet Lee's nephew, a high school dropout named Pete that seems to have his head on straighter than most of the folks around him (except of c...more
When I was a kid, my dad would have Argosy Magazine laying around the house. I would sneak the magazine into my room and read stories that I wasn't supposed to. The stories all had a very masculine edge to them. The Carpenter is like that. Although there's some deep issues revealed in the book, Matt Lennox doesn't waste words analyzing the emotional component. The characters populating this book are incredibly real. The dialogue is crisp and staccato. Nothing feels false about this book.
Leland...more
Leland...more
This was more than a 3 star, but not quite a 4 star, but 4 seemed to fit better than 3, I think.
The plot was really interesting, the characters were intriguing, and I really wanted the best for Lee once he was out of prison. The family dynamic was weird (which I'd imagine is realistic in that situation), and the book slowly tells the backstory.
What drove me crazy about this one was the punctuation...I know, I know, it's acceptable, but I prefer quotation marks when people are speaking, instead o...more
The plot was really interesting, the characters were intriguing, and I really wanted the best for Lee once he was out of prison. The family dynamic was weird (which I'd imagine is realistic in that situation), and the book slowly tells the backstory.
What drove me crazy about this one was the punctuation...I know, I know, it's acceptable, but I prefer quotation marks when people are speaking, instead o...more
Wow, this is some book, great start of the year for me. This book got to me from page one up until the end. Raw, dark, intense, personal, great story, great characters, wonderful strong debut by this Canadian writer.
In short, it's a story in the 1980's in a small bleak Ontario town. Leland King is returning from prison to his home town after doing time for a heavy crime. His mother is dying, and he is trying to connect with his family again. His young nephew Pete has quit school and works at a...more
In short, it's a story in the 1980's in a small bleak Ontario town. Leland King is returning from prison to his home town after doing time for a heavy crime. His mother is dying, and he is trying to connect with his family again. His young nephew Pete has quit school and works at a...more
3 likes · like · see review
Slow going story with a lot of good characters in a small town. A jailbird returns to his hometown to be with his dying mom. Lennox is a good writer but I think he'd be a great one if he could pick up the pace.
A carefully crafted debut novel that handles faith and redemption and good and evil with thoughtful, insightful character and plot development.
After 76 pages, I closed the book and returned it to the library. I thought it was flat with a multitude of uninteresting characters.
Started strong but gradually waned.
Bleak, noir and beautiful.
Intense. Well written, and good twists to a great story.
Original and creative story. Love reading Canadian authors!
I originally thought this was a murder mystery - but it becomes something different and more - a look at lives of several people in small town that seem to have bad things happen to them that are not necessarily of their own doing. It is not a happy story but I liked it for being different and making you think about life and the choices we make.
Good story. The bad language was getting to me though.
May 21, 2013
Mary Lou Gerow
marked it as to-read
May 19, 2013
Bergie
is currently reading it
May 03, 2013
Babs123098
marked it as to-read
Apr 29, 2013
Nic
added it
Apr 22, 2013
Pam
marked it as to-read
Apr 19, 2013
Sean Birdsell
is currently reading it
Apr 16, 2013
Barbara Hutcheson
marked it as to-read
Apr 08, 2013
Gillian
marked it as to-read
Apr 01, 2013
Lea
marked it as to-read
Mar 22, 2013
Aaah
marked it as wishlist
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Matt Lennox is a Captain in the Canadian Forces Army Reserves, and was stationed in Kandahar between 2008 and 2009. He wrote many of the stories in his first collection, Men of Salt, Men of Earth, published by Oberon in 2009, while there. The collection was shortlisted for the 2010 ReLit award, and the title story was published in Best Canadian Stories in 2006. He is currently in his second year o...more
More about Matt Lennox...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
i know, right??? ha!! he's a fairly amazing man, lennox!
Sep 09, 2012 06:43pm
me too -- even before my cousin spelled it out for me! HA!! lennox is doing a round-table a...more
Sep 09, 2012 06:44pm