Gender reversal explored in fiction

Reviewed by: Debbie Patterson

26/06/2010 1:00 AM

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/books/gender-reversal-explored-in-fiction-97216894.html

LIKE Yann Martel's Self or Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Kathleen Winter's debut novel explores the notion of gender reversal. But unlike these two esteemed writers, Winter accomplishes her task without ever resorting to magic.

In this remarkably lucid and forthright story, we follow the fortunes of Wayne, an endearingly earnest hermaphrodite, born in a remote fishing community in Labrador in the late '60s.

Wayne's father, Treadway, is a half-Innu trapper, a gentle taciturn stoic who loves dogs, hard work and the wild outdoors. Wayne's mother Jacinta is "from away" -- a schoolteacher from St. John's who came for work and stayed for love.