When young James Dixon, a local jack-of-all-trades recently returned from the Battle of Waterloo, meets Dorothy Wordsworth, he quickly realizes he's never met another woman like her. In her early thirties, Dorothy has already lived a wildly unconventional life. And as her famous brother William Wordsworth's confidante and creative collaborator--considered by some in their circle to be the secret to his success as a poet--she has carved a seemingly idyllic existence for herself, alongside William and his wife, in England's Lake District.
One day, Dixon is approached by William to do some handiwork around the Wordsworth estate. He quickly understands that his real responsibility is to keep an eye on Dorothy. The unlikely pair of misfits soon form a sympathetic bond, despite the chasm in social class between them, and Dixon becomes the quiet witness to everyday life among Dorothy's glittering social circle, which includes literary legends Samuel Coleridge, Thomas de Quincy, and William Blake.
Through the fictional James Dixon, we step inside the Wordsworth family, witnessing their dramatic emotional and artistic struggles, hidden traumas, private betrayals and triumphs. At the same time, Winter slowly weaves a darker, complex "undersong" through the novel--that of a woman determined, against all odds, to exist on her own terms.
Margaret Atwood is an author and activist.
2. UNDERSONG, by Kathleen Winter. @KnopfCA Dorothy and William Wordsworth, amazingly rendered through the story their gardener is telling the bees when Dorothy dies. How much of his work was "hers"? Mesmerizing!
Pro: herstory, heritage, period drama, prose, poetry, pussycats, plants, pudding, pastry, punctuation, paper pages, alliteration. 📚 🍰 🥄 🐈
@hfchitchat @OlesyaAuthor @GabriellaSaab_ @sydyoungstories @jgnoelle If we’re counting 1980s as #HistFic these days (Are we? I prefer not), then Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. If not, l’ve a 3-way tie to sort: Pillars of Avalon - @KatherinePym @judebookswelove, Haven - @EDonoghueWriter, Undersong - Kathleen Winter. #HFChitChat #CanLit
#Gellhorn book YOURS, FOR PROBABLY ALWAYS @FireflyBooks. 2021 @PRHAudio, read by @EllenBarkin. Rep @philipsturner. Reviewer @torontostar book pages. She/her
Please join me in virtual conversation at @festofauthors with Kathleen Winter (@supremetronic) & France’s Maylis De Kerangal on Mon Oct 25 at 4pm: https://festivalofauthors.ca/event/the-art-of-life/ THE ART OF LIFE. Treat yourself to their beautiful books: UNDERSONG & PAINTING TIME. @francetoronto https://t.co/jIAS8LZPAN
"Consistently elegant and original. It is very much a book about language and atmosphere. Winter mimics period style beautifully, and she also infuses the novel with unconventional touches--like the brief interstitial sections narrated by a sycamore tree on the Wordsworth property--that arguably conjure the idiosyncratic spirit of her heroine better than any first-person narration could have achieved." --Quill & Quire (starred review)
"Kathleen Winter is a rare talent. . . . [Her] version of Dorothy Wordsworth's story reveals the rich, hidden life of a woman determined against all societal expectations to live on her own terms. . . . Compelling, gracefully written, poignant and profound, Winter's novel glimmers and beckons. . . . . Undersong is a stunning, spellbinding, poetic triumph." --Toronto Star
"Gorgeous, era-evoking prose." --The Globe and Mail
"An engrossing delight. . . . Dorothy [Wordsworth]'s exuberant imagination blooms on the page. . . . [A] tantalizing glimpse into a life as it could have been." --Literary Review of Canada
PRAISE FOR BOUNDLESS
"Boundless is digressive and philosophical. . . . Winter is a confident and engaging stylist, and her treatment of the material is kind and empathetic. She finds the bizarrely beautiful in each person and in the land. Her story is filled with surprising and delightful humour, even while it deals with very significant problems. . . . Ultimately, the journey that Kathleen Winter takes on a last-minute whim is transformative. Her precise and vivid prose allows the reader to share in that transformation. . . . Boundless is a tremendous gift." --Quill & Quire (starred review)
"[G]raceful, poetic and shimmering prose." --Toronto Star
"Filled with elegance and insight, Boundless is an important contribution to the conversation about Canada's north." --CBC
"Boundless reads, as the title suggests, as a book free of borders and limitations, with Winter slipping effortlessly between the personal and the external, between the closely observed and the historical. It is a deep book, meditative and thoughtful, but it is also compulsively readable, driven by an inexorable narrative drive and its keen attention to humanity in all its manifold complexities. It is the sort of book one will finish and return to. . . . It both heightens life and plumbs its deepest mysteries, laying bare the beauty of both the world and the soul." --The Globe and Mail