Frankissstein

Starred review from August 12, 2019
Winterson (The Gap of Time) reimagines literary classic Frankenstein—both the story and the genesis of it—in her magnificent latest. The book shuttles back and forth between 1816, when a challenge leads Mary Shelley to write her indelible character and the monster he creates, and the present day, when a transgender man named Ry Shelley delves deeper into the burgeoning world and industry surrounding robotics and AI. A medical doctor, Ry supplies body parts to the professor Victor Stein, a brilliant if elusive man whose vision of the future is one in which human intelligence can transcend the limitations of needing a physical body. Victor’s interest in Ry is multifold: there is what Ry can procure for him through hospitals, and there is attraction—both romantic and platonic interest in the physical manifestation of Ry’s gender identity, which Victor calls “future-early” and Ry calls “doubleness.” Winterson’s recreation of the story of Mary Shelley’s creative process and later life and work is splendid, but it’s the modern analogue of the famous Lake Geneva party that is truly inspired. There is the hilariously crass sexbot entrepreneur Ron Lord, the evangelical capitalist Claire, and the nosy nuisance of Vanity Fair reporter Polly D, who’s constantly convinced she’s on to something. This vividly imagined and gorgeously constructed novel will have readers laughing out loud—and then pondering their personhood and mortality on the next page. Agent: Caroline Michel; Peters, Fraser & Dunlop.

March 1, 2020

Lake Geneva in 1816 is home (in two rented properties) to five English travelers, three made eternal through their writing, one among that trio renowned for creating (inhuman) life, literally. Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein there, accompanied by her poet husband Percy Shelley, fellow poet Lord Byron, his mistress-of-the-moment Claire Clairmont (who was also Mary's stepsister), and Byron's personal physician (and voyeuristic sorta-spy) John Polidori. With crisp, exacting enunciation, Perdita Weeks resoundingly enlivens the peripatetic 19th-century brood. Fast forward 200 years, and John Sackville embodies a new cast--but are they?--who initially converge at Tech-X-Po in Memphis, including transgender British doctor Ry Shelley (named Mary at birth); his lover/collaborator-to-be and AI expert Victor Stein; sexbot entrepreneur Ron Lord; local self-inventor Claire; and Vanity Fair's Polly D hunting the next great story. Sackville's impressive range doesn't quite include convincing southern American twang, but the rest of this repertoire is so admirably distinctive listeners may wonder if an uncredited third reader occasionally commandeered the recording. VERDICT Brilliantly exploring the many-layered possibilities--and growing probabilities--for the creation, consumption, definition, and destruction of life, Winterson's inventive latest gets memorably animated via two can't-be-ignored, seasoned narrators.--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

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