Annabel
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Review
`Her lyrical voice and her crystalline landscape are enchanting' --The New Yorker
`This haunting, powerful story is about much more than the problems of being a hermaphrodite...This is a remarkable first novel, an accomplished debut by an exciting new voice with a confident, mature style' --Daily Express
`This [is a] finely executed debut novel...Winter is excellent, too, on creating a convincing interior for her characters without sensationalising Wayne's sexuality, and there is a commendable lack of voyeurism in her exploration of his identity...As an examination of a relationship between a child and his parents, this is a moving tale, told with precision and care. As a debut, it is almost faultless' --The Glasgow Herald
`Winter clearly loves all her characters, even the hopelessly misguided men, and she lavishes compassion and metaphor on them' --The Scotsman
`This is an astute examination of ordinary people confronting extraordinary dilemmas' --The Mail on Sunday
`It is the powerful sense of place that is the most successful element' --Times Literary Supplement, Roz Kaveney
`Kathleen Winter has the steadfast clarity and quietly assured talent to make this difficult subject her own...The descriptive prose is melodically poetic, marrying spare lucidity and sage observation...She is equally adept at using her idiosyncratic eye to create charming images...Winter has a strikingly mellifluous voice, and she has created a potent story exploring gender categorization and humanity.' --Independent
`Powerful and important debut... Annabel could be seen as a polemic because of the seriousness of the issues. But Winter is as subtle as she is candid and the occasional flashes of irony are gentle... It is too simple to say that Winter has written a story about a hermaphrodite. This is a human and humane book about living and the instinct to survive and to protect. It is also about friendship, parental love and its limitations... Her brave, intelligent novel is about a journey to truth.'
--Irish Times
`A powerful story... compelling and sensitively written' --Stylist
`It's loneliness, not gender, that lies at the heart of Winter's novel- a confident, serious debut'
--Guardian
`A heartbreaking tale ...Winter's novel elegantly allows for the awkward ambiguities of the situation.' --Marie Claire
`I read Annabel in two days thus breaking all my rules about taking time with my reading and having 'thinking rests', and I can't tell you how much this book has filled my thoughts since... Just occasionally I think I have to beg and grovel and say 'pleeeeeeeeeeeease don't miss Annabel'. It will be in my top reads of 2011 no matter how many good books follow... I am very much hoping to see this on tomorrow's Orange Prize short list.' --Dovegreyreader
`A powerful story...compelling and sensitively written.'
--Stylist
`Kathleen Winter isn't afraid to tackle a tough subject head on. Annabel is an extraordinary novel...I can't help hoping that Emma Henderson or Kathleen Winter might do it (win the Orange).' --Daily Express
`Winter writes beautifully, and the sensational side of the story is handled elegantly' --Saga Magazine
`funny and tender, charming and moving...a genuine pleasure to read' --The Lady
`This haunting, powerful story is about much more than the problems of being a hermaphrodite...This is a remarkable first novel, an accomplished debut by an exciting new voice with a confident, mature style' --Daily Express
`This [is a] finely executed debut novel...Winter is excellent, too, on creating a convincing interior for her characters without sensationalising Wayne's sexuality, and there is a commendable lack of voyeurism in her exploration of his identity...As an examination of a relationship between a child and his parents, this is a moving tale, told with precision and care. As a debut, it is almost faultless' --The Glasgow Herald
`Winter clearly loves all her characters, even the hopelessly misguided men, and she lavishes compassion and metaphor on them' --The Scotsman
`This is an astute examination of ordinary people confronting extraordinary dilemmas' --The Mail on Sunday
`It is the powerful sense of place that is the most successful element' --Times Literary Supplement, Roz Kaveney
`Kathleen Winter has the steadfast clarity and quietly assured talent to make this difficult subject her own...The descriptive prose is melodically poetic, marrying spare lucidity and sage observation...She is equally adept at using her idiosyncratic eye to create charming images...Winter has a strikingly mellifluous voice, and she has created a potent story exploring gender categorization and humanity.' --Independent
`Powerful and important debut... Annabel could be seen as a polemic because of the seriousness of the issues. But Winter is as subtle as she is candid and the occasional flashes of irony are gentle... It is too simple to say that Winter has written a story about a hermaphrodite. This is a human and humane book about living and the instinct to survive and to protect. It is also about friendship, parental love and its limitations... Her brave, intelligent novel is about a journey to truth.'
--Irish Times
`A powerful story... compelling and sensitively written' --Stylist
`It's loneliness, not gender, that lies at the heart of Winter's novel- a confident, serious debut'
--Guardian
`A heartbreaking tale ...Winter's novel elegantly allows for the awkward ambiguities of the situation.' --Marie Claire
`I read Annabel in two days thus breaking all my rules about taking time with my reading and having 'thinking rests', and I can't tell you how much this book has filled my thoughts since... Just occasionally I think I have to beg and grovel and say 'pleeeeeeeeeeeease don't miss Annabel'. It will be in my top reads of 2011 no matter how many good books follow... I am very much hoping to see this on tomorrow's Orange Prize short list.' --Dovegreyreader
`A powerful story...compelling and sensitively written.'
--Stylist
`Kathleen Winter isn't afraid to tackle a tough subject head on. Annabel is an extraordinary novel...I can't help hoping that Emma Henderson or Kathleen Winter might do it (win the Orange).' --Daily Express
`Winter writes beautifully, and the sensational side of the story is handled elegantly' --Saga Magazine
`funny and tender, charming and moving...a genuine pleasure to read' --The Lady
Book Description
An incredibly moving first novel about a young hermaphrodite growing up in the frozen Canadian wilderness.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
This book took me to places I didn't know existed. People and the lifestyles in the provinces of Labrador & Newfoundland in Eastern Canada are so different to anything I have ever known, that initially I even wondered what time period the story was set in. It stated clearly that baby Wayne was born in 1968, but the hardship of his parents' life could have easily been a reflection of a 19th century rural life. The descriptions of the landscape, people's mentality, the climate and life in general were so detailed and beautifully written, I really felt that I'd been taken on a journey to a new country.
The characters around Wayne came to life, and I cared for each one, particularly his childhood friend Wally Michelin. Thankfully, the author gives recurring insights into the various characters' lives so that the reader isn't left to wonder what happens to them later on, or why they acted in a certain way; this changing third person narrative worked wonderfully, and even if there wasn't much action in terms of the storyline, the character development was compelling enough, and the very difficult subject matter of a hermaphrodite born into a rural, conservative environment handled sensitively. The book reminded me at times of the movie "Boys don't cry" but without the brutal visuals, and thankfully with a happier ending.
The characters around Wayne came to life, and I cared for each one, particularly his childhood friend Wally Michelin. Thankfully, the author gives recurring insights into the various characters' lives so that the reader isn't left to wonder what happens to them later on, or why they acted in a certain way; this changing third person narrative worked wonderfully, and even if there wasn't much action in terms of the storyline, the character development was compelling enough, and the very difficult subject matter of a hermaphrodite born into a rural, conservative environment handled sensitively. The book reminded me at times of the movie "Boys don't cry" but without the brutal visuals, and thankfully with a happier ending.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Rose Tremain covered slightly similar territory to this book in her novel, 'Sacred Country'. While that novel portrayed the life of a trans-sexual person, this one tells the story of a child born neither fully male nor female, but both at once.
One of the things that makes this book quite different, though, is that it is set in remote, coastal Labrador, in the far north-east of Canada. The evocation of the ways of life of the trappers and the women in this community is excellent as is the wonderful sense of place. Also brought vividly to life, is the time period (the novel begins in 1968) and this is often done through reference to contemporary television programmes, food products and music: this was the era of 'The Tide is High', Caramel Logs from the sweetshop and the gameshow, 'Truth or Consequences'.
This is a novel about family love and community bonds. About the fierce, unconditional love of a mother for her son, Wayne, who journeys to become her daughter Annabel; the way in which a father, despite the traditional ways of his own upbringing, comes to a redemptive relationship with his child. It is about the power of friendship and reveals the ways in which people can be different from our initial judgement of them. It is haunting and deeply moving.
There are wonderful moments the capture universal experiences, such as this:
'Wayne's sadness over Jacinta was the sadness all sons and daughters feel when their ferry starts moving and the parent stands on the dock, waving and growing tiny. A sadness that stings, then melts in a fresh wind.'
One character, Thomasina, who travels to Europe and beyond, represents the wider world and it's sensibilities impinging on the smaller world of a remote community. The city of St. John's in Newfoundland, symbolises for both Wayne-Annabel and his mother a place of greater freedom, somewhere that lives in memory or becomes a wider world where new beginnings become possible.
This is an extraordinarily accomplished and mature debut novel. It has just recently been short-listed for the Orange Prize for fiction. If it were to make the Booker shortlist too, I think my money would be on it!
One of the things that makes this book quite different, though, is that it is set in remote, coastal Labrador, in the far north-east of Canada. The evocation of the ways of life of the trappers and the women in this community is excellent as is the wonderful sense of place. Also brought vividly to life, is the time period (the novel begins in 1968) and this is often done through reference to contemporary television programmes, food products and music: this was the era of 'The Tide is High', Caramel Logs from the sweetshop and the gameshow, 'Truth or Consequences'.
This is a novel about family love and community bonds. About the fierce, unconditional love of a mother for her son, Wayne, who journeys to become her daughter Annabel; the way in which a father, despite the traditional ways of his own upbringing, comes to a redemptive relationship with his child. It is about the power of friendship and reveals the ways in which people can be different from our initial judgement of them. It is haunting and deeply moving.
There are wonderful moments the capture universal experiences, such as this:
'Wayne's sadness over Jacinta was the sadness all sons and daughters feel when their ferry starts moving and the parent stands on the dock, waving and growing tiny. A sadness that stings, then melts in a fresh wind.'
One character, Thomasina, who travels to Europe and beyond, represents the wider world and it's sensibilities impinging on the smaller world of a remote community. The city of St. John's in Newfoundland, symbolises for both Wayne-Annabel and his mother a place of greater freedom, somewhere that lives in memory or becomes a wider world where new beginnings become possible.
This is an extraordinarily accomplished and mature debut novel. It has just recently been short-listed for the Orange Prize for fiction. If it were to make the Booker shortlist too, I think my money would be on it!
34 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The plot concerns a child born in Canada in 1968, described as a hermaphrodite, though the term we would probably use now is intersex. The woman who delivers the baby, Thomasina, is a key character in the book. Although the baby's gender is assigned as male and he is christened Wayne, Thomasina secretly gives him the additional name of Annabel after her recently-drowned daughter. When her baby is deemed to be a boy, Wayne's mother, Jacinta, feels that she too has lost a daughter, and her grief mirrors that of Thomasina's. Jacinta goes into a slow decline and Thomasina goes travelling to come to terms with her own loss, turning into some kind of free-spirited supply teacher who dips in and out of Wayne's life.
The characters are well described, especially Treadway, Wayne's father, a decent, hard-working man struggling to come to terms with something beyond his experience or understanding. His efforts to shore up Wayne's masculinity are poignant though ill advised.
The book is generally well written, but after a while I began to tire of the Kathleen Winter's faux wisdom and impenetrable philosophical musings.
This is Thomasina when she delivers Jacinta's baby.
`It was as the baby latched on to Jacinta's breast that Thomasina caught sight of something slight, flower-like; one testicle had not descended, but there was something else. She waited the eternal instant that women wait when a horror jumps out at them. It is an instant that men do not use for waiting, an instant that opens a door to life or death. Women look through the opening because something might be alive in there.'
What the ...? There are lots of passages like this. For example this comes at the very end (not a spoiler I hope).
`Only in wind over the land did Treadway find the freedom his son would seek elsewhere.Treadway was a man of Labrador, but his son had left home as daughters and sons do, to seek freedom their fathers do not need to inhabit, for it inhabits the fathers.'
Just a bit too metaphorical for my taste. This new-age tone impinges on the plot providing a few unconvincing episodes. Treadway isn't told that there is an issue with the new baby. After a few days he intuits it using his natural wisdom and one-ness with nature, without even needing to look more closely, let alone give his son a quick once over under the babygrow.
The stress of conflicting responses to their son causes a major fissure in Treadway and Jacinta's marriage, though up until then they were well-enough matched: `His underclothes were of ewe's wool. When they made love she climaxed every time...' Sometimes these little nuggets made it seem like she was channelling Annie Proulx.
Wayne has a confused and troubling adolescence but his naivety is astonishing. He interprets his father's explanation of the facts of life as a penis escaping from a man's pyjamas of its own accord and somehow migrating over the other side of the bed to find the woman's genitals. Maybe this might work for a five year old but not for a child in Year Seven already developing breasts. Also, does his latent femininity have to be portrayed through yearning for beautiful prom dresses? It seemed a bit obvious. Maybe I just think this because those girly longings largely bypassed me when I was a teenager.
This is a sympathetic portrayal of gender variance. I really wanted to like it but its tone defeated me. I am perhaps a bit unfair giving it only three stars but her musings on the human condition were irritating. It could have been an infinitely better book if she had underplayed the Writer-as-Wise-Woman. Its best feature is probably the setting. Winter has a feel for the landscape and people of Labrador. Overall, rewarding but deeply flawed.
The characters are well described, especially Treadway, Wayne's father, a decent, hard-working man struggling to come to terms with something beyond his experience or understanding. His efforts to shore up Wayne's masculinity are poignant though ill advised.
The book is generally well written, but after a while I began to tire of the Kathleen Winter's faux wisdom and impenetrable philosophical musings.
This is Thomasina when she delivers Jacinta's baby.
`It was as the baby latched on to Jacinta's breast that Thomasina caught sight of something slight, flower-like; one testicle had not descended, but there was something else. She waited the eternal instant that women wait when a horror jumps out at them. It is an instant that men do not use for waiting, an instant that opens a door to life or death. Women look through the opening because something might be alive in there.'
What the ...? There are lots of passages like this. For example this comes at the very end (not a spoiler I hope).
`Only in wind over the land did Treadway find the freedom his son would seek elsewhere.Treadway was a man of Labrador, but his son had left home as daughters and sons do, to seek freedom their fathers do not need to inhabit, for it inhabits the fathers.'
Just a bit too metaphorical for my taste. This new-age tone impinges on the plot providing a few unconvincing episodes. Treadway isn't told that there is an issue with the new baby. After a few days he intuits it using his natural wisdom and one-ness with nature, without even needing to look more closely, let alone give his son a quick once over under the babygrow.
The stress of conflicting responses to their son causes a major fissure in Treadway and Jacinta's marriage, though up until then they were well-enough matched: `His underclothes were of ewe's wool. When they made love she climaxed every time...' Sometimes these little nuggets made it seem like she was channelling Annie Proulx.
Wayne has a confused and troubling adolescence but his naivety is astonishing. He interprets his father's explanation of the facts of life as a penis escaping from a man's pyjamas of its own accord and somehow migrating over the other side of the bed to find the woman's genitals. Maybe this might work for a five year old but not for a child in Year Seven already developing breasts. Also, does his latent femininity have to be portrayed through yearning for beautiful prom dresses? It seemed a bit obvious. Maybe I just think this because those girly longings largely bypassed me when I was a teenager.
This is a sympathetic portrayal of gender variance. I really wanted to like it but its tone defeated me. I am perhaps a bit unfair giving it only three stars but her musings on the human condition were irritating. It could have been an infinitely better book if she had underplayed the Writer-as-Wise-Woman. Its best feature is probably the setting. Winter has a feel for the landscape and people of Labrador. Overall, rewarding but deeply flawed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant!
I first heard this being read as the book of the week on Radio 4's Woman's Hour , and knew I wanted to buy the book. I wasn't disappointed. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. Jmmanning
Wonderful Book, Beautifully Written
It's rural Canada in the 1960s and Jacinta Blake gives birth to a child that has features of the both the male and the female. Read more
Published 4 months ago by S O'Hara
Satisfactory
Though I wasn't initially very 'taken' by this book, once I reached the halfway point I became a lot more compelled to read on. I have never read a book like Annabel before. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Stepping Out of the Page
One of the most moving, absorbing and touching books I've read this...
Rarely does a writer possess or demonstrate such skill in depicting and creating such a vivid and emotive landscape and array of characters. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Miss L. Stephenson
Difficult subject sensitively handled
This book caught my eye when it was short listed for the Orange Prize and, although it didn't win, I'm very glad that it will be reaching a wider audience. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Denise4891
a bit annoying
for several reasons-mainly the overall tone of gently melancholic wisdom that made me feel that none of the characters would ever crack a smile,but also the business with the... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Anne
Annabel
A graphic and sometimes painful snapshot of how confusing it is to be born with both sets of genitalia and internal organs. Read more
Published 9 months ago by B. Berry-Turner
A sympathetic and moving read
I found this book a bit difficult to get into at first. I felt that the story initially moved at a bit of a slow pace which was mirrored by the somewhat bleak landscape that the... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Nicola F (Nic)
beautiful but flawed
"Annabel" is beautifully written. Lovely use of the English language and wonderful descriptions of Labrador. Read more
Published 10 months ago by teapotowner
Enjoyable
Annabel is a moving and enjoyable read- set in the wonderully described Canadian wilderness. My only problem with the novel is that the last third is not as powerful, it loses its... Read more
Published 11 months ago by CeeCee
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