Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: October 01, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 925674
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Product Description:
Winner of the National Book Award, the long-awaited novel from the author of the acclaimed collection, Jenny and the Jaws of Life, is an unusual and wonderful novel that is somehow able to be at once bleak and hilarious, light-hearted and profound.
It's the story of two sisters. Abigail Mather is a woman of enormous appetites, sexual and otherwise. Her fraternal twin Dorcas couldn't be more different: she gave up on sex without once trying it, and she lives a controlled, dignified life of the mind. Though Abigail exasperates Dorcas, the two love each other; in fact, they complete each other. They are an odd pair, set down in an odd Rhode Island town, where everyone has a story to tell, and writers, both published and unpublished, carom off each other like billiard balls.
What is it that makes the two women targets for the new man in town, the charming schlockmeister Conrad Lowe, tall, whippet-thin and predatory? In Abigail and Dorcas he sees a new and tantalizing challenge. Not the mere conquest of Abigail, with her easy reputation, but a longer and more sinister game. A game that will lead to betrayal, shame and, ultimately, murder.
In her darkly comic and unsettling very first novel, Jincy Willett proves that she is a true find: that rare writer who can explore the shadowy side of human nature with the lightest of touches.
(20031010)
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Rated by buyers 
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"Winner" is a book that suffers from bad advertising. I was promised a grey comedy. "Riotous. Hugely funny..." and "The funniest novel I have read, possibly ever" appear right there on the cover.
The book was certainly sarcastic. It was caustic and biting but there was very little in the book that I could laugh at in good conscience. (And honestly, during reading, I wasn't inclined to do so.) In many ways, it was more like a car wreck on the highway - horrific but engrossing - than anything else.
Ms. Willett's main characters, twins Dorcas and Abigail, area a fascinating pair. Each completely embody the part of the human condition that the other lacks. "Winner" is the story of their interactions with each other and the members of a New England literary circle made up arch-typical characters.
Through my entire reading, I was off balance. I kept expecting 'funny' to show up and it never did. That said, "Winner" had other redeeming qualities which kept me reading. Ms. Willet gives Dorcas, the bookish narrator, wonderful recollections and descriptions of the joy of reading. The relationships between the people in a group and between the sisters were exaggerated for effect, but still intriguing.
Other parts of "Winner" were less successful. There were bits of extraneous metaphor and occasional clunky bits. Occasionally certain characters verged on caricatures.
I understand what Ms. Willett was attempting to skewer but in the end, "Winner" falls a bit short. If I had come at "Winner" with different expectations I might have found it more enjoyable, but I never shook the feeling of being a bit cheated by a novel that failed to deliver on its promises
Rated by buyers -
I really liked this book. It was at times funny, at times sad, and always, always interesting. There were some of those killer insights that make you stop and say, "oh yes" and the story had an almost mythic quality to it. I think that's because it begins in a hurricane and ends in a blizzard, and of course, features twins who are externally very different, but awfully similar on the inside. I found the characters very real, and thought the samples from Abigail's book were often hilarious. And the whole food-books-sex theme made for a great set of contrasts.
Rated by buyers 
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The clincher for me is when starving-to-the-point-of-psychotic Abigail flambes the evil passed out Conrad in his own Calvados then turns to her sister Dorcas and says: "Let's eat him." Brilliant. I almost wished she had. Very much looking forward to the subsequent novel. So much so that I'll even buy it in hard cover.
Rated by buyers -
I had no trouble finishing this book. It was moderately entertaining but never engrossing. The characters were so extreme that relating to them or feeling empathy for them was nearly impossible. Conrad, Hilda and Guy were so unlikeable I hoped for their demise early in the book. There were some funny moments but many more weird, disjointed, incomprehensible moments. The decriptions of New Englanders made me laugh out loud. All in all, it's not a terrible book and if you're curious...go ahead and read it. Otherwise, there are other books more worthwhile.
Rated by buyers -
This book has the single best opening sentence I've ever read in any book anywhere. That's saying a lot, because I have a classical education, and I'm a freelance editor. What's more, the book gets better and lives up to the electrifying excitement the opening line inspired in me. Read this book, and give copies of it as gifts. This is a book to proselytize about!
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