Dear Amy,
Thankyou so much for your kind words a few months ago, you made my day! So, because you like my blog, and because every writer needs to know their readers, I’ve decided to address this to you. It’s okay, I know this is the internet, I won’t make it personal…much. Let’s say I’ll write it so that anyone else can read it too.
Ames back in January when you told me you wanted to read more of this I was so inspired I decided I’d blog about every book I read this year. Well that was a stupid and quite short-lived decision! I find I’m finishing one book and moving on to the next with barely a pause for a cup of tea and a quiet summation in my mind. Some are amazing books, compact and fully realized, others just a good-read-for-now. I realized though that there are few books that deeply challenge your perspective of self and place and leave you a different – a better – person. This book is definitely one of them, and although there are others out there I'll leave mentioning them for another day.
This blog today is about Annabel, by Kathleen Winter. It’s a new book, only published this year, and one of the best books I’ve read in a long time – although I find it hard to separate the beauty of the text from the way it spoke to me personally.
Annabel is the story of Wayne, born to Treadway and Jacinta Blake in a small town in Labrador, in the North-East of Canada, in 1968. Treadway is a trapper, spending three months or more each winter out on his trapline hunting caribou, while Jacinta manages home and garden and nurses the secret sorrow shared only by Thomasina, her trusted friend: Wayne was born a hermaphrodite.
What follows is a poignant and tender exploration of growing up and self-discovery, against the harsh backdrop of a remote land.
Wayne is not told about his condition, and the myriad pills he takes daily he believes to be for a vague blood disorder. He is only aware of the longings inside of him and his father’s disappointment in him as a son. It isn’t until a medical emergency in the seventh grade that Thomasina tells him the truth, that there is a girl buried deep inside his boy body. Thomasina has named her Annabel.
Although an unusual premise, Annabel resonates so strongly with me not only because of the beauty of the prose and exploration of an unfamiliar landscape, but because Winter captures so perfectly the loneliness of growing up different from those around you and the struggle to find a place in the world.
Read this book! It is very, VERY good!
Haven’t finished it yet. I wanted to tell you all about it while I was still inside it, to not lose the moment and forget the beauty and power of it.
Better go, I’ve got a chai brewing and about a million dishes to wash.
Love you!
Megan xx
