Annabel: A Novel [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Kathleen Winter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2011

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.

In 1968, into the devastating, spare atmosphere of the remote coastal town of Labrador, Canada, a child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor fully girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret—the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbor and midwife, Thomasina. 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. And as Wayne grows into adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting society of his father, his shadow-self, a girl he thinks of as “Annabel,” is never entirely extinguished.

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. A daringly unusual debut full of unforgettable beauty, Annabel introduces a remarkable new voice to American readers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Isolated as Croyden Harbour may be from the social upheaval of 1968, the tiny village on the southeast Labrador coast plays host to its own revolution in Winter's sincere, self-serious debut. Jacinta and Treadway Blake are like any other couple in town--he's away on the trapline all winter, she's confined to domestic life. But the clarity of traditional gender roles begins to unravel when Jacinta gives birth to a hermaphrodite. Both Treadway and the local doctor decide the baby will be brought up as a boy--he's named Wayne, and his female genitalia are sewn shut. Meanwhile, Jacinta's friend Thomasina, quietly tends to the spiritual development of the child's female identity. Kept in the dark about his condition for most of his childhood, Wayne struggles to live up to the manly standards imposed by his well-meaning if curmudgeonly father, but when adolescence rolls around, Wayne's body reveals a number of surprises and becomes a battleground of physiology, identity, and sexual discovery. Though delivered at times with a heavy hand, the novel's moral of acceptance and understanding is sure to win Winter many fans. (Jan.) (c)
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From Booklist

Wayne, born into the harsh, rural landscape of Labrador, Canada, in 1968, is a hermaphrodite. It is his father who ultimately decides to raise him as a male and names him. Only Wayne’s parents and their friend Thomasina Baikie, also present at his birth, are aware of his gender duality. The two women silently battle against Wayne’s father’s gender assignment, and as Wayne grows older, he must contend with the two genders struggling for dominance within him. His father, Treadway, a trapper who spends most of his time outdoors, works hard to steer Wayne away from his feminine side. His mother, Jacinta, becomes increasingly estranged from her husband as she mourns the loss of her female child. Following the tragic death of her husband and daughter, Thomasina travels the world and sends enticing postcards to Wayne of the world beyond his own. A simple yet eloquent coming-of-age tale, this debut novel quietly questions our assumptions about gender by presenting us with a host of complex, evocative characters. A fantastic read that will appeal to fans of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (2002). --Julie Hunt

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat; Original edition (January 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080217082X
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170828
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.3 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Tender Tale About Sexual Ambiguity January 5, 2011

By Bonnie Brody TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Being born a hermaphrodite can be a very hard row to hoe. It is especially hard when you are born in remote Labrador in 1968. The nearest specialist is miles away and this is not a town that relishes diversity. Even today, in large urban areas, there is a lot of controversy about what to do about gender when an infant is born with ambiguous sex organs. Some doctors utilize blood tests to determine gender and others go by outward appearance. A true hermaphrodite is born one in 81,000 births.

When Jacinta and Treadway have a home birth, assisted by their friend Thomasina, they are shocked to see that their infant child has one testicle and a vagina. They immediately take the baby to the hospital where the doctor determines the child to be a boy. His sex is determined because his penis is large enough to call him a boy. He is named Wayne and brought up as a son. However, he has a full set of female sex organs within him and feels that he has a shadow female self that Thomasina calls Annabel. Lifelong medication shuts off the development of Wayne's female self and promotes his development as a male.

Wayne is not told that he is a hermaphrodite. He takes pills every day that he believes are for a blood disorder. His father, Treadway, tries to get Wayne to be `one of the guys' and keeps hoping Wayne will join in with other boys in their activities. However, Wayne is not like that. He likes to draw, is fascinated with bridges, and loves to sit and talk with his mother. Treadway is a trapper who is gone for most of the year and, as tension in the home builds due to Wayne's condition, he is gone more and more. It is Jacinta who is responsible for most of Wayne's rearing.

This debut novel is about Wayne's journey through life and is a treatise on gender, especially its fluidity and ambiguity. Though Wayne lives his life as a boy he is always wrestling with the feeling that there is something else there, something in him that is different from other people. Thomasina knows his secret and it is she who rushes him to the hospital when he is going through puberty because his abdomen is filled with menstrual blood. She decides that it is important for Wayne to know about himself and she breaks the silence, informing him about his uniqueness.

Wayne struggles throughout his adolescent years and finally decides to stop taking all his pills to see what his `real' body and self are like. He is met with varied responses, some accepting and some filled with hatred. He goes in for surgery to have the original surgery reversed. (When he was an infant, his vagina was sewn shut). Now he can experience the world as both male and female.

The reader lives with Wayne throughout his life until his twenties. We yearn, with him, to know more about who he truly is and how he can fit into the world. He has one dear friend from childhood, a girl named Wallis and we are with him as he yearns for her with a physical and emotional longing that is not sexual.

Kathleen Winter has written a very interesting novel about a fascinating subject. However, there is something missing in the characterizations. We never get to know what makes Treadway and Jacinta tick. They go through tremendous changes but it is as through they are left midway in their struggles and the reader is waiting for some completion, some finality in their lives. Thomasina is very well done and she is, in many ways, the star of this book. She is willing to take risks for Wayne and she is the first person to give him a girl's name - Annabel. The novel, at 461 pages is very long and would have benefited from editing that made it tighter.

I commend the author for taking on this topic. She does it sensitively and there are parts of the novel that flow beautifully with a ring of magical realism to it. Wayne is a beautiful spirit searching for himself. We root for him as he tries to overcome a life that is that is filled with secrets and lies.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Assigned to the wrong gender at birth January 21, 2011

By Samuel Rafael

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

A wonderful and exceptionally well-written and sensitive book about a person coming to terms with his own identity. On another level this novel profoundly illustrates the failure of our society to deal with the simple realities of life. The author, a master at character development, tells the tale of a person born with ambiguous genitalia, who undergoes surgery at birth and is assigned to the wrong gender. This is a cautionary tale for prospective parents about a phenomena that is not as rare as everyone might imagine. Although this masterful story is a novel, the end result is pure poetry. Unfortunately, it seems, intersex issues are not much addressed in fiction, but this book would have to rank at or near the top of any list of books either about that subject or transgender themes in general.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, as desolate as it is descriptive. May 30, 2011

By Steve M. Pritchard

Format:Paperback

Annabel is a story that I would have never, ever even given a second glance had I not followed a whim and tried something different. The moral of the story is: Try something different. I knew from the cover what Annabel was going to be about and it might have evoked something deep inside considering my sister is transgender. That probably fueled me to at least try it. But Annabel is not about a transgender child. Annabel is about a true hermaphrodite, something that exists in less than 85,000 births.

Kathleen's writing style is amazing. She is descriptive. She guides you- sometimes oppresses you- into her world, enrapturing you with the incredible details of wild Labrador, a tiny family and village that this child is raised in. She describes the incredible desolation- and the unseen beauty of that desolation. Then she introduces you to Wayne and his family, and the desolation continues. These are flawed, believable people that evoke emotional response. You get frustrated with them, you empathize with them, you want to survive... or get their due.

Pick up and try this book if you're willing to endure a story of a lonely life that barely understands itself, but is trying to- like all teenagers and young adults- to find their way.