Atlantic Crossing by Jeanette Winterson (1998): A Review
Book: The World and Other Places
Author: Jeanette Winterson
Publication Year: 1998
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Short story
I love authors who can still surprise their readers — and by “their readers”, I mean me, personally.
Given Winterson’s recurring interest in queer women’s experiences, I initially assumed the narrator was a woman. I became increasingly confident in this assumption, settled comfortably into it, and was then informed by the story that I had been completely wrong. Thank you, Jeanette. Very humbling.
This story felt unlike anything else I had read by Winterson. It echoes famous literary relationships, including Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and briefly references Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams as representatives of literary masculinity. Some of these moments were unexpectedly hilarious.
At the centre of the story is an administrative mistake: a Black woman and a white man are assigned to the same cabin on a transatlantic ship in the 1950s. Naturally, this creates confusion, discomfort, curiosity, and the possibility of a love story (?) — although the question mark after “love story” should remain firmly in place.
For a while, I had no idea what to do with the story. Was it a romance? A parody of romance? A commentary on race, gender, and literary expectations? A transatlantic identity crisis with shared accommodation?
Whatever it was, it gave me the atmosphere of an old black-and-white romance film: elegant, restrained, slightly theatrical, and full of things nobody is willing to say directly. At moments, I also sensed something vaguely Hemingwayesque, although I hesitate to make that claim in case Hemingway’s ghost demands supporting evidence.
Something about this story was distinctly different and held my attention, even if I cannot fully explain what it was. Perhaps that is the surprise: I didn't quite know what I was reading, but I wanted to keep reading.
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