Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

Children’s fiction featuring not only time travel but quantum physics, wave theory and Schrödinger's Cat (literally) could be a bit of an overkill. At the centre of this overloaded burrito of a novel is eleven year old Silver. Orphaned after her parents and sister mysteriously disappear, she lives at her family’s ancestral house, a rambling property called Tanglewreck, warded by a selfish aunt with a nasty see-all, tell-all rabbit named Bigamist. The world is plagued by time tornadoes where random bits of the past such as woolly mammoths plummet into the present. Amidst all this, Silver discovers that she is a part of an old prophecy of the timekeeper and the child with the golden face who is supposed to be some sort of time saviour. Assisted by a tribe of mutant inmates from 17th century Bedlam, she bends space and time and travels with one of them to a remote planet called Phillipi on the Einstein line where she must confront those who wish her harm.  

Tanglewreck comes off as an easygoing and yet completed overstuffed novel. But, I suppose it has the right elements to keep its target audience entertained. This is, in fact, Winterson’s first novel for children and I’ve never read any of her earlier work but she seems to be an accomplished writer. Her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, based on her own childhood experiences, are about a girl discovering her sexuality in a zealously Christian home. Despite not really having enjoyed Tanglewreck, I’m thankful for it acquainting me with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – a promising work which I’ve just started reading.