Frankissstein: A Love Story

by Jeanette Winterson

***LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019***
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE 2020**
**LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI PRIZE 2020**

A radical love story for right now, from 'one of the most gifted writers working today' (New York Times).

In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love - against their better judgement - with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI.

Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with Mum again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere.

Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryonics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead... but waiting to return to life.

But the scene is set in 1816, when nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley writes a story about creating a non-biological life-form. 'Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful.'

What will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realise. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself.

'Jeanette Winterson's Frankissstein won't disappoint. A modern take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it's a fascinating and engrossing look at AI, science, gender fluidity and, ultimately, what it really means to be human.' Nicola Sturgeon, New Statesman

• ISBN10: 1787331407
• ISBN13: 9781787331402
• Publish Date: 28 May 2019
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 23 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[clementine]

Ahh, man, I do love Jeanette Winterson, but this didn't quite work for me. She was doing a lot here and something about it didn't fully connect. I generally find Winterson's work to be moving in a way that I can't quite understand or explain - and I kept waiting to feel something deeply here and just... didn't. Maybe this is a case of my expectations being too high because of the calibre of her other work. I seem to have run into some issues this year with novels that are very rich in ideas and a little lighter on narrative and character development. This reminded me in a lot of ways of Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last - the exploration of sex robots, the satirical edge that felt cheap and unaccomplished. A disappointment for me!