captures the way children simultaneously understand and don’t understand, the way parents simultaneously protect and harm their children, the way the truth both imprisons us and sets us free. Both the fear and the beauty are given vivid expression in this finely crafted novel.” -Barbara Carey, The Star (Toronto) Annabel is a novel about divisions, not only between the sexes but also between social classes and, perhaps most crucially, ways of being. Her novel is written with immense sensitivity and grace, not to be missed.” -Jim Piechota, Bay Area Reporter

Reminiscent of Middlesex, Winter’s treatment of such a delicate issue is amazing and incredibly engaging.

The novel’s moral of acceptance and understanding is sure to win Winter many fans.” - Publishers Weekly

Stripped of the trappings of gender, Winter asks, what are we?” -Christine Fischer Guy, The Globe and Mail Read it because it’s a story told with sensitivity to language that compels to the last page, and read it because it asks the most existential of questions. What Winter has achieved here is no less a miracle than the fact of Wayne’s birth. Annabel is less about chromosomal anomaly than it is about human potential, for cruelty and neglect and ignorance as much as for tolerance and generosity and strength. A daringly unusual debut full of unforgettable beauty, Annabel introduces a remarkable new voice to American readers. Kathleen Winter has crafted a literary gem about the urge to unveil mysterious truth in a culture that shuns contradiction, and the body’s insistence on coming home. His ultimate choice will once again call into question the integrity and allegiance of those he loves most. John’s, the anonymity of the city grants him the freedom to confront his dual identity. When Wayne finally escapes the confines of his hometown and settles in St. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hypermasculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as “Annabel,” is never entirely extinguished. Though Treadway makes the difficult decision to raise the child as a boy named Wayne, the women continue to quietly nurture the boy’s female side. Only three people are privy to the secret-the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and their trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Kathleen Winter’s luminous debut novel is a deeply affecting portrait of life in an enchanting seaside town and the trials of growing up unique in a restrictive environment.

Annabel kathleen winter summary