The Winner
"Seductive . . . consistently fun. . . . This is The Graduate with an advanced degree. Wayne's plot was made to gallop, and it does not disappoint. I read The Winner in two nights. It's not just the sex that's provocative; it's the way the reader is steadily pulled into Conor's dilemma. . . . I'd judge Wayne on his easy access to the immoral and amoral, but given my own voracious consumption of this book, better to stay off my high horse."--New York Times
Conor O'Toole has never been anywhere like Cutters Neck, a gated community near Cape Cod. It's a sweet deal for the summer: in exchange for tennis lessons, he receives free lodging in a luxurious guest cottage, far from the cramped Yonkers apartment he shares with his diabetic mother.
In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by, and Conor has bills to pay. When Catherine, a sharp-tongued divorcée, offers double his usual rate, he soon realizes she is expecting additional, off the court services for her money, and Conor tumbles into a secret erotic affair unlike anything he's experienced before.
Despite his steamy flings with a woman twice his age, he simultaneously finds himself falling for an artsy, outspoken girl he meets on the beach. With cautious, strategic planning, Conor somehow manages this tangled web--until he makes one final, irreversible mistake.
A dark, explosive literary thriller that brilliantly skewers the elite, Whiting Award winner Teddy Wayne's unputdownable novel is cinematic, shocking, and a psychological masterpiece.
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A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker and Vogue --
"Seductive . . . consistently fun. . . . This is The Graduate with an advanced degree. Wayne's plot was made to gallop, and it does not disappoint. I read The Winner in two nights. It's not just the sex that's provocative; it's the way the reader is steadily pulled into Conor's dilemma. . . . I'd judge Wayne on his easy access to the immoral and amoral, but given my own voracious consumption of this book, better to stay off my high horse." -- New York Times Book Review
"Seductive...consistently fun...This is The Graduate with an advanced degree. Wayne's plot was made to gallop, and it does not disappoint. I read The Winner in two nights. It's not just the sex that's provocative; it's the way the reader is steadily pulled into Conor's dilemma...I'd judge Wayne on his easy access to the immoral and amoral, but given my own voracious consumption of this book, better to stay off my high horse." -- New York Times
"There's a hint of Tom Ripley in the stylish, smart thriller [and] its inspired take on how money, sex and power can corrupt. . . . The Winner has a creepy Highsmithian placidity, coolly measured while depicting bad things being done and cannily covering up the evidence. . . . The Winner is among Wayne's best, a savvy take on sex, money and power. . . . He can write a thoughtful novel about moral ambiguity and corruption that's also a movie-ready page turner, with enough room for a sequel." -- Washington Post
"A terrific noir thriller. . . . Comparisons to The Graduate and The Talented Mr. Ripley are inevitable. But The Winner, which has some very canny things to say about class and privilege, owes its biggest debt to Theodore Dreiser. This is An American Tragedy diabolically turned on its head." -- Wall Street Journal
"Be prepared to fully lose yourself in The Winner--a book I started and then simply couldn't stop reading. Teddy Wayne has written a timely, topical novel that still somehow feels like a classic." -- Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River
"An acid portrait of life in one of America's privileged gated enclaves. . . . Class is a subject seldom addressed in contemporary American fiction. . . . Teddy Wayne's latest makes a welcome contribution to the neglected subject." -- Boston Globe
"The Winner is a harrowing romp through the bedrooms of the rich and entitled. Teddy Wayne takes us behind the gates of a super-exclusive community, an enclave of grotesque wealth where everyone gets what they want--with disastrous consequences. A gripping, provocative, and delightfully shocking novel." -- Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness
"A page-turning story of sex, power, and money." -- Vogue
"A riveting novel about how to have the rich and eat them, too. Sexy, breathless, and brutal." -- Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir
"A palm-sweating thrill ride" -- Esquire
"The Winner is a lean, careening thrill of a book that kept me awake half the night and away from work the following day. Conor O'Toole's steady embroilment with the wealthy people he teaches tennis to is drawn with exquisite dread. Wayne has a genius for brief observations that reveal whole reams of truth about class, poverty and competition, while also never allowing the hideously compelling story to let up for a moment. Exhilarating, cutting, and funny, The Winner is already one of my favorite books of the year." -- Megan Nolan, internationally bestselling author of Acts of Desperation and Ordinary Human Failings
"Wayne has a pitch-perfect understanding of this tiny slice of American privilege, and also a sense of what might happen to a deeply admirable character whose strong moral code is severely tested by circumstance. I was reminded at various times of "The Great Gatsby," "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and, in a different way, "The Graduate." All those books filled me with unease. This one made me feel beside myself with anxiety." -- Sarah Lyall for The New York Times
"[A] gripping high-stakes tale of dangerous liaisons, grand deception, and ruthless ambition...What started out as a sharp comedy of manners about the carefree lives of the careless rich becomes a fast-paced psychological drama with hidden depths and dark undercurrents...an exhilarating reading experience." -- Washington Examiner
"Page-turning...Wayne has packaged a literary examination of wealth and privilege as a summer thriller...The Winner delivers another scathing indictment of human nature, even if that means indicting ourselves." -- Chicago Review of Books
"Readers will zoom through Wayne's...bitingly satirical literary thriller." -- Booklist
"A summer among the Massachusetts elite introduces a young law student to a life and temptations he hadn't imagined...The novelist expertly inserts himself inside Conor's psyche...A novel that puts a fresh twist on getting what you deserve." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Over the last decade and a half, Teddy Wayne has emerged as a writer willing to reckon with some of the biggest issues facing the nation." -- InsideHook
"I read this book so fast my eyes started to burn." -- Hobart
"Conor O'Toole is a fascinating character...Teddy Wayne has created a real dark gem...The Winner serves, dinks, and backhands up a scathing satire, where entitlement and privilege get caught in its own playful, libidinous, and morally ambiguous net." -- Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"Propulsive, winning...The Winner's pace never slackens...Wayne...writes on male alienation as well as any contemporary American novelist." -- The Mars Review
