Winkie

Winkie

by Clifford Chase (Author)

Synopsis

After suffering decades of neglect from the children who once loved him, Winkie hurls himself off the shelf, jumps out the window, and takes to the forest. But just as he is discovering the joys and wonders of mobility, self-determination, even true love, this small brown creature of indeterminate gender gets trapped in the jaws of a society gone rabid with fear and paranoia. Having come upon the cabin of the mad professor who stole his beloved, Winkie is suddenly surrounded by the FBI, who instantly conclude that he is the evil mastermind behind dozens of terrorist attacks that have been traced to the forest. Terrified and confused, Winkie is brought to trial, where the prosecution attempts to seal the little bear's fate by calling upon witnesses from the trials of Galileo, Socrates, John Scopes, and Oscar Wilde. Emotionally gripping, intellectually compelling, Winkie introduces the most memorable protagonist since the Velveteen Rabbit, and -- with the help of a lesbian Moslem cleaning woman, a stuttering attorney, and a Lacan-spewing bear cub -- brilliantly exposes the cruel absurdities of our age and explores what it means to be human in an increasingly barbaric world.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 19 Apr 2007

ISBN 10: 0340924543
ISBN 13: 9780340924549

Media Reviews
'Winkie is a luminous achievement -- a magical, eccentric novel about the subversive imagination, and about the power of anarchic play. I recommend this book with the utmost enthusiasm and joy' -- Wayne Koestenbaum 'Chase makes this out-of-left-field story work brilliantly; a funny and sweet yet seriously topical novel.' -- Kirkus Starred review 'Winkie is not for everyone. But Winkie is the most ambitious book of the year so far, and is therefore worth your time ... Grade A' -- Entertainment Weekly 'Winkie's trial is a minor masterpiece of ridiculousness, in which the prosecution's move to end the trial after it has presented its side sounds uncomfortably close to what we read in the newspapers... Chase puts himself in the same league as David Sedaris with this unclassifiable debut' -- Publishers Weekly 'I really loved the book ... I enjoyed the satirical bent, I thought it was clever and deft, and also the pictures made me laugh heartily.' -- Lucy Porter
Author Bio
Clifford Chase is the author of The Hurry-Up Song, a memoir, and the editor of Queer 13: Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade. WINKIE is his first novel, and was inspired by the actual Winkie, who was passed down by the author's mother and is now at least eighty years old and quite mangy.