It’s just great stuff – and I can’t recommend The Passion highly enough. Winterson’s world has logic and magic, walking hand in hand … and you may not believe something happens logically – but you believe in the magic. A writer really is like a god in that way – she creates worlds. Winterson creates scenes that will forever be emblazoned on my memory: the frigid Russian winter, the casino in Venice, the eerie prison/mental hospital on the island at the end … These are WORLDS she creates. There are characters in those pages – Villanelle, Domino, Napoleon – who will stay with me forever. All I can say is: The Passion is a terrific novel and a book I hold very dear to my heart. I don’t THINK I sat around waiting for her to write another Passion – that’s not really my thing either … Oh well. I guess it’s tough when you count a book as your all-time favorite, one of your beloved books.

Winterson is nothing if not ambitious and fearless. She obviously had other things to say, and wanted to try other things in her writing – and kudos to her for feeling free enough to do that.

Now, Winterson has no obligation to me, specifically. Not forever, mind you – but I kept waiting for, you know, a story – in her next couple of books – something that was on the extraordinary level of Sexing the Cherry and The Passion … and it wasn’t there. When she started getting introspective (in my opinion), when her imagination started turning inward – I lost interest a bit. To me, it is Winterson at the height of her powers.

It’s one of those books, too, that I can read, and read again, and again, and never get sick of. The Passion is one of my favorite books of all time.

The passion jeanette winterson review