Harry Karlinsky

Harry Karlinsky is a Vancouver-based psychiatrist. In his first novel, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879), readers learn of the tragically short life of Thomas Darwin, the last of eleven children born to Charles Darwin, and a young scientist in his own right, whose novel application of evolutionary theory centres on knives and forks and spoons. Is Thomas Darwin a character of pure invention or simply a heretofore little known figure, one reclaimed from the dusty registers of the London Asylum by the diligent research of Karlinsky: scholar, historian, and first-rank provocateur?

Reviews of The Evolution of Inanimate Objects

“More memorable than any door-stopping wodge of prose presenting itself as a diagnosis of the state of the nation.” SCOTSMAN ON SUNDAY

“Karlinsky’s retelling of Darwinian family history is ingeniously wry and original. Prepare to be moved, amused and duped when you enter this quasi Victorian World.” Essie Fox, Author of THE SOMNAMBULIST

“Just when you think there’s nothing new to be done with the novel, along comes a book that pushes the form in a fresh direction. Harry Karlinsky’s extraordinary book slyly and playfully blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, asking where one begins and the other ends. THE EVOLUTION OF INANIMATE OBJECTS is the work of a genuinely original imagination, a complete pleasure and like no other book you have ever read.” John Harding, author of FLORENCE & GILES

‘Poignant. Erudite. Understated. It is a first novel signaling the arrival of a serious and inventive new writer.’ Vancouver Sun

A ‘delightful, playful (and sad) novel’ Globe & Mail

‘This delightfully imaginative book is worthy of A.S. Byatt’ Historical Novel Review