Winter Park

by Graham Guest

“A powerfully distinctive voice.”  ~Michael Schmidt, author of The Novel: A Biography

 

“Highly crafted and stylised while also being agreeably direct and spare, psychologically compelling, and unusual.”  ~Miranda Mellis, author of The Spokes and None of This Is Real

 

“I read Guest's work like I read Lyn Hejinian's – with amazement at the logic and connections made.”  ~EK Reeder, author of Ramshackle and Fremont

 

“Winter Park is a fine, considered, original piece of creative work…I enjoyed it hugely.”  ~Toby Litt, author of Corpsing

 

“Winter Park is characterized by a vivid yet uncluttered prose style as well as a fantastically good ear for spoken dialogue and black humour.  The continuities with Faulkner are perhaps the most striking.” ~Dr. Helen Stoddart, University of Glasgow

 

“His prose draws the reader into his exuberant and skillful mind.”  ~Joseph Lease, author of Testify and Broken World

226 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 4, 2016

Reviews

[Lisa]

Winter Park, the debut novel by Graham Guest, is an unusual read. In fact, I have never read anything like it. I think that is what intrigued me most about the novel. I found the plot a little lacking; yet, what Mr. Guest does do well is interject a mix of thought provoking ideas with an absurd sense of irony that really worked. Due to the lack of grammar, the prose can be difficult at times to follow and the characters are nothing short of bizarre.

The story starts with a young Philosophy PhD student, Eric Swanson, on spring break headed to Winter Park, CO to a reunion of sorts with friends he left behind. What ensues is a drug/drunken calamity that ends in murder. Part I abruptly ends when Eric wakes up from his stupor and recalls what happened.

In Part II, the reader is then whisked away to a rehabilitation camp in Texas called The Dude Ranch. The camp is run by a strange group of people. Eric has now metamorphosed into a paraplegic as a result of the trauma in Part I. He is then given an alias, as everyone is, of Wayne Ford and is paired with Harris Birdsong. Harris is a savant of sorts in that he has memorized the whole dictionary but appears to function on a social level of a young child. The story from this point is mainly a continuous stream of Harris’s thoughts. Without a doubt, the intent here is to recall the idiom “out of the mouth of babes”.

A little house keeping here. First, because of the plot short comings, I would really rate this book as 3.7 instead a pure 4 stars. Second, I received a free copy on exchange for my honest review.

[Vicki Carbone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the strangest, most compelling book I will read -- maybe ever! First, utterly unreliable narrators -- yep, multiple unreliable narrators and a very strange story. Listen folks -- having read this book, I have two pieces of advice. (1) Don't do drugs. (you will understand when you read this book). (2) READ THIS BOOK. Oh, yes, and one more piece of advice. Free up your calendar for the day. Once you start, you won't want to put this one down.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I understood the point of this book...maybe there wasn't a point...and if that was the point I'm not sure how I feel about that. lol

All I can say is that Miranda Mellis summed it up beautifully when she said Winter Park was psychologically compelling and unusual.

P.S. I won this book through a goodreads giveaway.

[KarnagesMistress]

I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. It is autographed.