Synopses & Reviews
Richard Winslow is in a rut. His wife is leaving him, he drinks too much, his once-acclaimed poetry has sunken into obscurity, and he hasn't written anything worth reading for eighteen months. In truth, he hasn't even tried. The offer of a visiting professorship at a small college in Montana hardly seems like the best way to renew his artistic glory, but with his options and his bank account rapidly dwindling, Winslow makes the move. Once there, he rediscovers the forgotten pleasures of fly-fishing and meets a girl in worse shape than he is.
Erica is a painfully thin student with a dragon tattooed on her neck. She is also sharp, confrontational, and fiercely intelligent. Their relationship, formed over paper cups of Johnnie Walker in Winslow's office, escalates when they impulsively take off on a road trip in Winslow's prized possession, a classic Lincoln Town Car. Traveling through Utah and Arizona, they forge a bond neither anticipated. Winslow, haunted by thoughts of death, begins to embrace the promise of love and life.
From stunning descriptions of fly-fishing in cold Montana streams to pitch-perfect renditions of intimate conversations, Winslow in Love is a work of extraordinary beauty. Canty has long been recognized as a writer of finely nuanced prose who sees our time with breathtaking clarity. Of his last novel, Newsweek wrote: "Canty's forte is to examine human relationships with the precision of Sue Miller or Louise Erdrich within the context of a fast-moving narrative. Once he's got you in his thrall, you're as helpless as his lovers in the hands of fate."
Review
"A great American road trip novel improbable, scary and transcendent." Joy Williams, author of The Quick and the Dead
Review
"Kevin Canty opens up the shame, the surprise, the beauty, and the undeniable comedy of human beings persisting in their lives and in love. Emily Dickinson, Route 66 and Winslow in Love. It doesn't get better than this." Amy Bloom, author of A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
Review
"Canty masterfully explores the complex, heartbreaking subtleties of this romance, as these improbable lovers find some small measure of comfort together." Library Journal
Review
"Canty has a real flair for the bitter self-deprecating humor these unlikely companions share and spar with, and for ferociously pertinent character-centered imagery. But the story is all too familiar..." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Raw. Rare. Honest. Beautifully written. Winslow in Love is one of those novels that come along every now and then, making sense of the ruin and rush of our lives. The ongoing dream is to escape towards who we once were and Winslow, a great broken-down drunken poet, manages to get there with a shattering grace. By avoiding all the clichés, by embracing sentiment without sentimentality, by taking the hard curve, Canty has written a significant American novel. Praise be." Colum McCann, author of Dancer
Review
"Every now and then people sink so low, then meet someone so perfectly wrong, that the only lower place left to fall is in love. This blues-tune of a novel takes the 'April-September romance' cliché and twists it till it sings like Lucinda Williams. Canty's flabby yet indomitable old poet and self-starving poet-to-be defy expectation to the end, repulsing as they charm, derailing as they entertain, lying as they shine." David James Duncan, author of The River Why
Review
"Kevin Canty writes about battered souls on the stick's short end. His latest novel, Winslow in Love, is a sad and sodden romance, shorn of any gloss. It's what Leaving Las Vegas might have been if Elisabeth Shue weren't still kind of hot and Nicolas Cage still kind of charming." Noah Oppenheim, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopsis
When a burned-out poet takes a visiting professorship at a small college in Montana, he rediscovers the forgotten pleasures of fly-fishing and meets a girl in worse shape than he is. On an impulsive road trip, they forge a bond neither anticipated.
Synopsis
Richard Winslow is in a rut. His wife is leaving him, he drinks too much, his once-acclaimed poetry has sunken into obscurity, and he hasn't written anything worth reading for eighteen months. In truth, he hasn't even tried. The offer of a visiting professorship at a small college in Montana hardly seems like the best way to renew his artistic glory, but with his options and his bank account rapidly dwindling, Winslow makes the move. Once there, he rediscovers the forgotten pleasures of fly-fishing and meets a girl in worse shape than he is.
Erica is a painfully thin student with a dragon tattooed on her neck. She is also sharp, confrontational, and fiercely intelligent. Their relationship, formed over paper cups of Johnnie Walker in Winslow's office, escalates when they impulsively take off on a road trip in Winslow's prized possession, a classic Lincoln Town Car. Traveling through Utah and Arizona, they forge a bond neither anticipated. Winslow, haunted by thoughts of death, begins to embrace the promise of love and life.
From stunning descriptions of fly-fishing in cold Montana streams to pitch-perfect renditions of intimate conversations, Winslow in Love is a work of extraordinary beauty. Canty has long been recognized as a writer of finely nuanced prose who sees our time with breathtaking clarity. Of his last novel, Newsweek wrote: Canty's forte is to examine human relationships with the precision of Sue Miller or Louise Erdrich within the context of a fast-moving narrative. Once he's got you in his thrall, you're as helpless as his lovers in the hands of fate.
About the Author
Kevin Canty is the award-winning author of the novels Nine Below Zero and Into the Great Wide Open, as well as the short story collections Honeymoon and Other Stories and A Stranger in This World. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, the New York Times Magazine, and other periodicals. He lives in Missoula, Montana.