I’ve had Tiny Pieces of Enid by Tim Ewins calling to me from my TBR for months and I’m delighted finally to be able to share my review today. My enormous thanks to Simon Edge for sending Tiny Pieces of Enid to me all those months ago. I’m still playing catch up with reviews after a relatives busy time of late!

Tiny Pieces of Enid was published by Lightning Books on 9th May 2023 and is available for purchase here. 

Tiny Pieces of Enid

Enid isn’t clear about much these days. But she does feel a strong affinity with Olivia, a regular visitor to her dementia home in a small coastal town. If only she could put her finger on why.

Their silent partnership intensifies when Enid, hoping to reconnect with her husband Roy, escapes from the home. With help from an imaginary macaw, she uncovers some uncomfortable truths about Olivia’s marriage and delves into her own forgotten past.

A deeply touching story of love, age and companionship, evoking the unnoticed everyday moments that can mean the world to the people living them, Tim Ewins’ second novel will delight fans of his acclaimed debut, We Are Animals.

My Review of Tiny Pieces of Enid

Enid is in a dementia care home.

Tiny Pieces of Enid is exquisite. The way Tim Ewins writes ensnares the reader immediately, drawing them in to the narrative and mesmerising them with both gentleness and razor-sharp observation. I loved the fairly fragmentary structure of the chapters because this fits the way Enid’s mind works and how her memories present themselves. 

Enid could be any one of us. In a sense, her story is a prosaic one and as her memory fails, she succumbs to life in her care home. She has lived a relatively ordinary life and her dementia is recognisable to so many of us. But that doesn’t describe the warm, sensitive and humane insight Tim Ewins has and nor does it convey the beautiful, convincing and heart-breaking manner with which he uncovers Enid’s personality and experiences to the reader. Certainly there’s a quietness in the narrative, but there are times of high drama too that affect the reader so deeply. There’s something unquantifiable about the profound impact Tiny Pieces of Enid has and how meeting Enid, and Olivia, shines a light onto human nature and the realities behind so many seemingly ordinary lives. 

As the characters are relatively few in number and much of the action takes place in just a couple of settings, Tiny Pieces of Enid has an intimacy that enhances the themes of family and relationships, of physical and mental health, of love and warmth as well as of control and violence. The book is so convincing that it is hard to imagine that Enid, Olivia et al are not real people. They permeated my thoughts and I found myself wondering what was happening to them when I wasn’t reading the book. I lived their lives alongside them. I thought the balance of Enid and Roy’s lives compared with Olivia and David’s in the sub-plot was perfect. There are echoes and similarities between them all that I thought were utterly compelling but to say more is to spoil the read for others.

Tiny Pieces of Enid is not merely a good book. It is, rather, a truly magnificent one. It’s a book that touches the reader, heart and soul. I thought it was magnificent because it is imbued with love and compassion – and what more could we aspire to or need in life? I absolutely adored it.

About Tim Ewins

Alongside his accidental career in finance, Tim Ewins performed in stand-up comedy for eight years. He also had a very brief acting stint (he’s in the film Bronson, somewhere in the background) before turning to writing fiction. His first novel, We Are Animals, was published by Lightning Books in 2021. He lives with his wife, son and dog near Bristol.

For further information, follow Tim on Twitter @EwinsTim or find Tim on Facebook.