Wonderkin - by Colin Winnette (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Propulsive, clear-eyed, and surprisingly tender, WonderKin is PEN/Faulkner finalist Colin Winnette's profound portrait of love in our unpredictable future.

The world Charles Wright inhabits is our own . . . Almost. Repeated pandemics have thinned the population, and in their wake, humanoid machines known as models exist to create the illusion of a populated world. Originally built for service, these models have been integrated into the fabric of daily life, blur- ring the boundary between the mechanical and the personal and eliminating the need for human connection. As a father of two, Charles has done his best to prepare his twin sons for this rapidly changing world, but on the eve of their tenth birthday, he wants nothing more than to give them the gift of a day they'll never forget. However, a sound in the night and the arrival of an unexpected stranger will force Charles to make a choice that could change everything he thought he knew about love, fear, and what it means to be human.

Colin Winnette's indelible story lights the way forward, guiding readers through the strange new world already taking shape around us. A spellbinding tale written with humor and grace, WonderKin's timely blend of uncertainty and hope makes it an essential modern classic.

Review Quotes

"I love Winnette's work in all registers" -Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author of ANNIHILATION

"WonderKin is a wonder: echoes of West World and Pluribus, yet an entirely fresh creation forged from Colin Winnette's strange and singular perspective, transformed by his humor and attention. This novel collects so many of our shared anxieties about technology into an examination of the most human stuff of life: belief, grief, and, underlying it all, love." -Rachel Khong, bestselling author of REAL AMERICANS and MY DEAR YOU

"Colin Winnette deftly uses the subject of technology to plumb what it is to be human: how we ought to be--whether as lover, as parent, as child, or simply as a person. WonderKin is a riveting, funny, and touching novel about our uneasy contemporary moment." --Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of ENTITLEMENT and LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND

"As suspenseful, gripping, and immersive as it is humane and compassionate, WonderKin is a powerful novel of fatherhood for our near-dystopian era of AI agents and hyperreality. Readers will fall in love with Charles and his sons as they navigate the hazy boundaries between the human and the machine, searching for new forms of connection in a perilous, alienating world. A stunning work of imagination." ­ --Bruce Holsinger, bestselling author of CULPABILITY

"An ingenious, moving, hypnotic, and perfectly executed novel about love in a time of technological ferment. Colin Winnette's speculative world feels more real than real life itself." --Karan Mahajan, author of THE COMPLEX

"Grappling with subject matter that is, at its very core, extremely present and oh so human, Colin Winnette has concocted a world as convincing as it is disquieting, where our oldest questions--What is family? What is consciousness? What do we owe one another?--are asked with compelling new urgency. Wonderkin is an absolute marvel of a novel--speculative and intimate, emotionally generous and intellectually alive. I couldn't stop turning this book's pages until I reached the last one, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since." --Isaac Fitzgerald, bestselling author of AMERICAN RAMBLER

"WonderKin grabs hold of you and never lets go. Big-hearted, unflinching, and wholly original, this is a book that fearlessly plumbs the depths of human consciousness and reminds us how important we are to each other. No one writes like Colin Winnette." --Kate Folk, author of SKY DADDY

About the Author

Colin Winnette is the author of Users (Soft Skull, 2023), which was a Finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction, a New York Times Editor's Choice, a New Yorker "Best Books We Read in 2023", and called "the First Great Novel about Virtual Reality" by The Nation. He also authored The Job of the Wasp (Soft Skull, 2018), longlisted for The Believer Book Award, and Coyote, (Les Figues, 2015), winner of the 2013 NOS Book Contest. He was Runner Up for the CSU Poetry Center's First Book Award, and his stories were shortlisted for the Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Fiction. Originally from Denton, TX, he currently lives in San Francisco.