The Winter Zoo: A Novel

by John Beckman

A sexy, hilarious novel of wayward young expatriates -- and the difference between doing good and feeling good.

In 1990, a young man named Gurney abandons his newborn daughter in an Iowa delivery room and escapes into Krakow, Poland, where it seems as if everyone is hunting for the next new thing. Upon this seductive frontier, Gurney devotes himself to a life of irresponsibility. Already ensconced in Poland is Gurney's cousin Jane, a master manipulator who occupies the center of Krakow's spiderweb of sexual and political intrigue. As Jane and Gurney's relationship swerves thrillingly closer to the incestuous, Gurney crosses paths -- and often swords -- with Krakow's gallery of rogues and innocents. Among them are Wanda, Jane's virginal yet rebellious roommate, who harbors for Gurney a not-so-secret crush; Dick Chestnutt, a sodden American expatriate; Jackie Witherspoon, an ambitious young scholar of uncertain sexuality and allegiance; and Zbigniew Zamoyski, Wanda's father, a former Communist aristocrat who decides that the fun, and Gurney, must be stopped.

Seamlessly juxtaposing totalitarianism and freedom, the political and the personal, John Beckman has created a magical world. Evocative and suberbly crafted, The Winter Zoo marks the debut of a young writer of enormous talent and promise.

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pretty surprised by a few of the episdoes in this novel (i.e. the group orgy near the end), especially since the author was one of my undergrad english profs.

[Greg Bascom · Rating 4 out of 5]

In September 1990, Gurney, the 22-year old protagonist, abandons his lover and their newborn daughter in Iowa and flees to Kraków, Poland, to live with his cousin Jane in a boarding house. Fond of adventure and fun, Gurney becomes embroiled in the kooky and sometimes kinky lifestyles of Jane's friends, his landlady and her estranged husband Zbigniew, and their daughter Wanda. Tormented over forsaking his daughter, Gurney keeps her a secret, but as the entangled relationships unravel he discovers that Jane, Zbigniew, Wanda and their wayward friends have secrets too.

The writing is good, but there are some quirks. The dialogue is without quotation marks, which occasionally is confusing, as are a few abrupt switches in the point of view character. The first seventy pages are sprinkled with some obscure mythological references, and throughout the metaphors are often puzzling to the point of distraction. The abundant and mostly unnecessary use of Polish words is stifling. Still, the passions and fears of the intriguing cast of characters are gradually and fully developed in a nicely intertwined story

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one had promise. The author took a risk by making the protagonist unlikable in the first few pages, but you were able to forget that with evocative descriptions of a tiny apartment and the autumn streets of Krakow just after the wall came down. But .... then it all fell apart. There was too much of an entitled older Polish guy who believed he should have exclusive access to all American women half his age, the protagonist who was interested in the same women, first cousin or not, and the utterly ludicrous murder side plot and completely uninteresting secondary characters. This, however, was not the worst part, as that belonged to the idea that all this intrigue, quickly found fortune, cousin-fucking, murder, and random-as-hell orgy could take place in a 3-month span.

It's just too bad. Eastern Europe in the early 90s seems like great fodder for fiction but this, the pertinent part of The Correction,s and Prague have all missed.

[Gary Garth McCann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hats off to any author who has the balls to start a book with a young man watching his child being born and immediately afterward going off to new post-Communist Warsaw to, essentially, party. The mother would rather he go than have him remain in the picture and resent it. He lives in Warsaw with his female cousin, sniffs her underwear, and cums into it, along with becoming a casino croupier, getting mixed up with assorted characters, and staging a major public orgy in a hotel ballroom. I'm a sucker for a book that intimately involves me in a young man's sex life and appreciate this author's candor and appreciate what one might say is an authorial stand against editors who want protagonists so good that many today drip off the page like the goo they are. No goo to Beckman's main guy.

[Charles Kerns · Rating 3 out of 5]

Balancing between old school aristocracy and Iowan naïveté until the two mix in a Christmas orgy, Beckman is not nice to Americans or Poles as they pulse though the streets, often without their clothes and drunk. Like a frat party that took over a city.

[Alessandra Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sexy book!