![]() ![]() When Jacinta Blake gives birth in the bathtub of her house in the village of Croydon Harbour, her close friend Thomasina is the first to notice that the newborn possesses a combination of male and female parts. ![]() Winter also considers the broader effect of gender constraints, particularly how these vary between smaller rural settlements and urban environments. The long-term ramifications of such decisions form Annabel’s narrative backbone. The key concern of intersex advocates is whether infant bodies and genitalia should be surgically altered to match societal expectations. Intersex conditions arise when a person is born with atypical reproductive or sexual anatomy. Despite a few plot and pacing stumbles, Annabel is a dramatic, thematically rich novel. Intersex births are considerably more common in real life than in fiction, and Montreal-based Winter has followed up her Metcalf-Rooke Award–winning short story collection BoYs with a thoughtful treatment of this rarely discussed topic. A universal concern – the importance of self-determination – takes a highly specific form in Kathleen Winter’s first novel, the story of an intersex child born in a remote coastal Labrador village in 1968. ![]()
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