this book is lovely, but it is a mostly subdued novel about an intersexed child raised as a boy, whose fully operational vagina is sewn up at birth and kept a secret from him until a little health issue brings it to light. this is not a broad, epic tale like middlesex. it is a subtle, lonely story that takes place in a remote part of canada where men provide for their families by trapping game, and women sew and raise both their vegetables and their children quietly.

wayne is raised as a boy, be More...

*** SPOILERS, OF WHICH I HIDE ONLY THE MAJOR ONE ***

this book has great promise, mostly in the beautiful language, but i felt it (the book, not the promise), from halfway through to the end, get lost in the writer's fantastic meanderings. this is what i mean: it feels as if kathleen winter, the author, made a conscious decision not to follow narrative conventions of closure and preferred to follow her soul. her soul dictated to her a free form in which threads are left dangling and non-existent More...

The book was the best novel I have ever read. I normally don't like fiction but this is the first novel that ever made me cry while I was reading. It resonated with me on so many aspects:

•I have been struggling with my sexuality for a very long time. Except for one major difference, which is that Wayne is a hermaphrodite and I am a physically "normal" male, I was astonished at the number of similarities between Wayne and me:
••I have always felt like a female soul out of sync with my body. Ever s More...

Beautifully written book about a young person born as a hermaphrodite in 1960s Labrador. Through poetic language and vivid imagery, a complicated, unusual story is told tenderly and lovingly. It is a powerful story of hope that we can eventually bridge the gap between one another so that we can truly be ourselves.
Very highly recommended.

Longer review: http://bit.ly/O9YXqA


Q & A with Kathleen Winter: http://bit.ly/aapbFS

The lone white caribou that appears as a vision to the blind hunter is just one of several allegorical animals that appear or are called upon at different decisive moments in the story. White caribou don't move that far south... "Why does anybody break away from the herd?" This allegorical image gives the reader a sense how much Kathleen Winter places nature and landscapes into a prominent position in her debut novel, ANNABEL: she conveys its mystique in a perceptive, almost poetic language, and More...

This review is my longest and hardest written yet. If you want a less wordy review, that I agree with almost entirely, check out this one at Quill and Quire.

However, if you press on, I will reward you with a free smiley at the end!

I wouldn't call what you have a disorder. I'd call it a different order. A different order means a whole new way of being. It could be fantastic. It could be overwhelmingly beautiful, if people weren't scared. -from Annabel by Kathleen Winter

I did not read this book a More...

Written with compassion this extremely well received debut novel tells the story of raising a hermaphrodite child in a remote Labrador Village. At its core is the father’s misguided decision to give the child a normal life by dictating he is male, a choice that requires burying his female side with a combination of surgery & hormone treatment. A decision that sets the stage for a lifetime of secrecy, a collusion of dishonesty that threatens to tear the family apart.

The tone of the novel is More...

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. Though the subject matter certainly isn't something I'm judgemental or conservative about, the way it was portrayed sometimes made me feel a little uneasy. The abusive scene at Deadman's pond made me feel very uncomfortable, but it was effective. Overall, I thought that the writing was very good. I liked the majority of the More...

Quietly beautiful and hypnotically written. I am astonished to find that this is a first novel. One scene in particular (which, oddly enough, involved a hawk and an orange) will stay with me a long time.

Interestingly, I found the central conceit (the main character's hermaphroditism) almost a distraction. It may be the "hook" for many readers, but the book doesn't need it, and occasionally it rang just slightly false or desperate. Winter's eye for character, her gorgeous depiction of her setting More...

When a baby is born, the first question anyone asks is “Boy or girl?” It is accepted that gender is the most important thing about the child, before questions like “Healthy?””All limbs and digits present?” or “Brain inside skull properly?” No, the shape of the genitals is the most important thing to society.

In 1968, in a barely populated area of Labrador, a baby is born to Jacinta and Treadway Blake. Born in the bathtub with three neighbor women in attendance, only one person, Thomasina, notices More...

Although the subject matter of this beautifully written novel could be considered shocking or sensational, Winter tells the story of Wayne Blake with sensitivity and insight. Wayne is born a hermaphrodite in 1968 in a remote Labrador village and only three people know his secret – his mother, Jacinta, an outsider from the city, his father, Treadway, a trapper, and Thomasina, the wise midwife. Treadway decides that the baby should be raised as a boy and Wayne is given corrective surgery and, late More...

Annabel tells the story of a family living in a remote town in Canada. The town is very male driven, with the men of each family going out to hunt etc. Women are mostly stay at home mums and very few of them have ‘important’ jobs. When Jacinta and Treadway have a baby, everything changes. The baby is born a hermaphrodite and the couple have no idea how to deal with that, let alone how to bring the baby up. I really enjoyed the slow build up in this novel, as the setting is a very important thing More...

I rapidly fell in love with this book, which tells the story of an intersexed child born in rural Labrador. At first I was mildly hesitant, feeling that intersexuality has become a trendy topic and being rather put off by the Booklist quote on the jacket assuring us that anyone who liked Middlesex would like this (!). And really, what a ridiculous recommendation. Yes, I liked both books, but because they were good novels, not because the protagonists were intersexed (hermaphroditic). If someone More...

Having read and enjoyed Middlesex, I was curious to read this one to see how it compared, coming from a female author, and Canadian at that. I was pleasantly surprised, and really came to like Wayne as a character, as well as most of the others in the book. The story flowed well, I thought, and kept me engaged til the end.
A couple of things I wasn't so fond of. I didn't feel the mother's character was was consistent, nor did I get to find out about her eventual outcome. She was left out hanging More...

The story of Wayne Blake, born a hermaphrodite in late 1960s Labrador, to parents Jacinta and Treadway. The confusion and shame that ensues after the birth does not temper their love for the child, but it is Treadway--giving his timorous wife no say in the matter--who declares that Wayne will be raised as a boy. Hovering over Wayne's early life is Jacinta's friend Thomasina, who recognizes and acknowledges Wayne's femaleness the moment he emerges from the womb, and secretly bestows upon him the More...

This book is gorgeous and heartbreaking. It's as much about the changing face of rural Labrador as it is about the protagonist. It does fall into that Canadian literature cliche of obsession with winter and landscapes--there are a couple points in the novel where the description of the landscape and the characters' relationship to the land itself almost comes across as tokenistic or overplayed.

The part of the book that absolutely stunned me though was the narrative of the protagonist's changing More...

This book was so beautiful that I had to stop over and over again to pause and breathe. It was AMAZING.

Remember when you read Middlesex and you thought, "Gosh, Middlesex was really good, except that it had all these things going on, and Cal seemed kind of distant sometimes" and you wished that there was something just a little better?

Annabel is that book.

It's lush and lyrical, and the protagonist, Wayne-who-is-also-sometimes-Annabel is gorgeously painted. What Winters has done in bringing us thi More...

Annabel is one of the best books I’ve read in years. It is a story of a baby born, neither completely male or female, in a small Innu community in Labrador. The parents, Jacinta and Treadwell, are faced with a decision to bring up the baby as either a girl or a boy. Treadway, an Innu trapper, decides that the baby will be raised as a boy, despite his wife’s reservations. Beside the baby’s parents, only a neighbour woman, Thomasina, who is present at the baby’s birth, knows the secret.

Keeping th More...

(This review also appears on Amazon.co.uk)

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 author wrote about (in a very detailed manner), and I did wonder if I would enjoy the story or find it a bit too overdone in metaphors and philosophical pondering.

Thankfully I found this book to be a very moving read with characters that I ended up really caring for and I admired More...

This is the story of Wayne/Annabel, a child born a true hermaphrodite in the 70s when medicine and it's ways were still not quite up to great standards, and certainly not in the backwoods area that is the setting for this tale, in Labrador.

I picked the book up from the look of the cover, it was being featured and I've always considered androgyny to actually be quite beautiful so I was drawn to the cover. When I picked it up it was being compared to Middlesex (which I have but have not yet read More...

I expect that everyone reading Annabel will take away something different. Teachers will reflect on their approach; parents will question their actions; health care professionals will question their practice; everyone will question their notions of black and white.

For me, reading the novel was an extremely uncomfortable and unsettling process that uncovered wounds I had long since buried or forgotten that I thought I had recovered from. So many of Wayne/Annabel's experiences were also my experie More...

Annabel is one of the most amazing books I've read in a long time. I have to say I was a bit skeptical when I picked it up, as it is a story of an intersexed child born into a family in rural Labrador. I was afraid to find a one-dimensional story with lots of overt politics. Instead, I found a complex story told in beautiful language that brought the land to life, as much as the lives of the people who find themselves in an extraordinary situation, totally foreign to this rural community.

The par More...

A stunning novel. Set in Labrador in the 1960's in a tiny town called Croydon Harbour. Where everyone knows everyone, and men are men and women are women.

Wayne Blake is born a hermaphrodite and his father Treadway, makes the decision to raise him as a boy and name him Wayne.

This novel is heart piercing. The reader worries for Wayne as he grows older, and discovers through his parents and other peoples reactions to him, that he is different. He is a child that loves to cut out pictures from magaz More...

Beautifully written, though fairly boring.

“Annabel” revolves around the life of a hermaphrodite born in Labrador. No one except the child’s mother, father, and trusted neighbor know of his unusualness. The father chooses the raise the child as a boy, naming him Wayne, and hide the fact that he is both male and female from the world, against the mother’s own desire. The book continues through the life of Wayne. To summarize the book is trying to summarize the life of anyone; it simply cannot be More...

I finished "Annabel" just a couple days ago. And i have to say that i'm incredibly ambivalent.

On the one hand, i was completely engrossed, especially as Wayne was hitting puberty and starting to discover that, yeah, things were quite as should be expected with his body. I found the book beautifully written, with well-drawn characters and a great physical setting.

On the other hand, i really wonder about Winters' use of a main character who's intersexed. It's clear she comes from a feminist backgr More...

I had a hard time deciding between 3 and 4 stars, but I like to be generous, so decided upon 4. This novel was recently nominated at the Maritime Book Awards and I think that it may have won. The story idea was fascinating, a hermaphrodite born in Labrador in the late 1960s, so I anticipated a great read much like Middlesex. This child was raised as a boy, Wayne, and we get a great insight into his internal thoughts and his knowledge that he is different, but not knowing why. We also get a heart More...

“ANNABEL” by Kathleen Winter
a review by Marilee Pittman

The day after I started reading “Annabel” by Kathleen Winter, I journeyed to coastal Labrador. While it is only an hour and half ferry ride from the island of Newfoundland, it is virtually worlds away. There is something about Labrador that is so vast, untamed and lonely. People are different. They are closer to the earth, they know things about survival that most of us can’t recall or ever needed to know.
Kathleen Winter has captured the es More...

When a child is born at the remote hamlet of Croydon Harbour, Labrador in 1968, his parents Jacinta (born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland) and Treadway Blake, a native of Labrador, and a deep woods trapper as was his father and his father before him, are faced with an unusual problem: the child is born with both female and male sex organs -- a true hermaphrodite. With surgery and hormone treatments, the child is raised as Wayne but the secrets of his origins are kept from him; only Thomas More...

This book is a beautiful study in characters. Wayne, or Annabel, the hermaphroditic main character is naturally the person we come to know most intimately, but there is hardly an inhabitant of the his small Canadian town who is not explored complexly. What I like best about this story is that complexity. While Treadway makes the decision to raise his child as a son and hide half of her nature, he is clearly not the villain of the piece. He is a man wise enough to fear society's reaction to the a More...