Frankissstein: A Novel

Praise for Frankissstein Longlisted for The 2019 Booker Prize One of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Fiction Books of 2019 One of Washington Post's 50 Notable Books of Fiction in 2019 One of Hudson Bookseller's Best Fiction Books of 2019 Library Journal's Best of 2019 Fiction Books One of BookMarks' Best Reviewed SciFi and Fantasy Books of 2019 "Winterson has stitched together that rarest of beasts: a novel that is both deeply thought-provoking and provocative yet also unabashedly entertaining (I laughed out loud more times than I could count). “Frankissstein,” like its protagonist Ry, is a hybrid: a novel that defies conventional expectations and exists, brilliantly and defiantly, on its own terms.” - Sarah Lotz, New York Times Book Review “This novel is talky, smart, anarchic and quite sexy. You begin to linger on those three s’s when you speak the title aloud.” - Dwight Garner, New York Times “A brainy, batty story ― an unholy amalgamation of scholarship and comedy. [Winterson] manages to pay homage to Shelley’s insight and passion while demonstrating her own extraordinary creativity... his is no work of conventional literary history. It’s just a jump to the left... The dialogue is slick and funny, often delightfully obscene, but beneath all the kookiness, Winterson is satirizing sexual politics and exploring complicated issues of human desire... a bag of provocative tricks and treats. With diabolical ingenuity, [Winterson’s] found a way to inject fresh questions about humanity’s future into the old veins of Frankenstein .” - Ron Charles, The Washington Post "Spellbinding...artfully structured, unexpectedly funny, and impressively dynamic." ― Elena Sheppard, Los Angeles Review of Books ““Frankissstein” is intellectually bracing and sexually explicit; a historical literary romp and a futuristic thriller. It, like its characters, rejects the binary.” - Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times “[A] dazzlingly intelligent meditation on the responsibilities of creation, the possibilities of artificial intelligence and the implications of both transsexuality and transhumanism… Winterson’s great gift as a writer… is the ability to inject pure thought with such freewheeling enthusiasm and energy that ideas take on their own kind of joyous life. Frankissstein abounds with invention… Deeply evocative historical realism balanced by hilarious, almost bawdy set pieces… A work of both pleasure and profundity, robustly and skillfully structured.”― Guardian “Gleefully Gothic… Dazzling… Enjoyably audacious.”― Independent “Sparky, funny and finely calibrated to ask weighty questions with the lightest of touches, Frankissstein is romantic, unsettling and beautifully written.”― Sunday Express “A riotous reimagining with an energy and passion all of its own that reanimates Frankenstein as a cautionary tale for a contemporary moment dominated by debates about Brexit, gender, artificial intelligence and medical experimentation… While the story has a gripping momentum of its own, it also fizzes with ideas.”― Financial Times “A surge of inventiveness… Frankissstein is a book that seeks to shift our perspective on humanity and the purpose of being human in the most darkly entertaining way… gloriously well observed.”― Observer “A hold-on-to-your hat modern-day horror story about very modern-day neuroses and issues.”―BBC News “Intelligent and inventive… Frankissstein is very funny. There has always been a fine line between horror and high camp, and this is a boundary that Winterson gleefully exploits.”― The Times “Highly inventive… Lyrical, gloriously raunchy, pulpy and absurd.”― New Scientist “Winterson has long been interested in the politics of identity and is good here on the way our aspirations and anxieties about AI tap into ancient and eternal human dreams of perfectibility… One half of the book is saturated in the restless melancholy of the Victorian Gothic, the other in the ruthless sterility of Silicon Valley.”― Daily Telegraph “This fast-paced novel of ideas is animated with ease and vigor… We’re reminded that human relationships and all the emotions they entail are precisely the things that can’t be replicated. This is, after all, a love story.”― i “Hilarious but serious time-travel gambol with Frankenstein: modern doubles into AI, cryogenics, and sexbots. (Hint: Mod. Byron does not come out of it well.)”― Margaret Atwood "Winterson might be the most expansive, the most ambitious, the most wide-ranging of all out lesbian writers.” ― Benjamin Moser Praise for Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? “Arresting and suspenseful… Offers literary surprises and flashes of magnificent generosity and humor.”― Washington Post Book World “Winterson writes with heartrending precision… Ferociously funny and unfathomably generous, Winterson’s exorcism-in-writing is an unforgettable quest for belonging… A magnificent tour-de-force.”― Vogue “One of the most entertaining and moving memoirs in recent memory… A marvelous gift of consolation and wisdom.”― Boston Globe “[Winterson is] searingly honest yet effortlessly lithe as she slides between forms, exuberant and unerring, demanding emotional and intellectual expansion of herself and of us.”― Elle Jeanette Winterson CBE was born in Manchester, England. After graduating from Oxford University she published her first novel at 25, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit , to widespread acclaim and a BAFTA for her BBC TV adaption. Twenty-seven years later she revisited that material in the bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She has written 10 novels for adults, as well as children’s books, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. She believes that art is for everyone and it is her mission to prove it. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Naming is power, I say to Claire. It sure is. Adam’s task in the Garden of Eden. Yes, indeed, to name everything after its kind. Sexbot . . . Pardon me, sir? Do you think Adam would have thought of that? Dog, cat, snake, figtree, sexbot? I am thankful he didn’t have to, Dr Shelley. Yes, I am sure you are right. So tell me, Claire, why did they call this place Memphis? You mean back in 1819? When it was founded? As she speaks I see in my mind a young woman looking out of a sodden window across the lake. I say to Claire, Yes. 1819. Frankenstein was a year old. She frowns. I am not following you, sir. The novel Frankenstein – it was published in 1818. The guy with the bolt through his neck? More or less . . . I saw the TV show. It’s why we are here today. (There was a look of confusion on Claire’s face as I said this, so I explained.) I don’t mean existentially Why We Are Here Today – I mean why the Tec-X-Po is here. In Memphis. It’s the kind of thing organisers like; a tie-in between a city and an idea. Memphis and Frankenstein are both two hundred years old. Your point, Dr Shelley? Tech. AI. Artificial Intelligence. Frankenstein was a vision of how life might be created – the first non-human intelligence. Read more