I am caught between The Passion and Sexing the Cherry as my favourite Winterson, but with the faint whispers of hope this contains, I think this meditation on love and time wins for me.
Set in the present and in C17th London-as well as some undefined and fairy-tale time and place - the principal cast move between times (or is it that people continue to pursue love and make the same mistakes in all times and places?) chasing impossible loves as lovers, mothers and searchers.
There is humour, violence, pathos here: the Mountainous Dog Woman’s disgust at seeing a banana; the deaths in a brothel she brings about; her love for her adopted son, all stand as highlights for me: her son Jordan’s desperate search for his love, the dancing princess Fortunata, is equally moving. The theme running through it all is an almost mystical insight about the nature of humanity and our inconsistencies around time and reality, with love (not always requited) holding our too-fragile perceptions together.
It is a daring book in terms of concept and structure but Winterson knows how to do this: the reader-author bond is never in doubt.