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. In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by. 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 affair. He simultaneously finds himself falling for an artsy, outspoken girl he meets on the beach. Conor somehow manages this tangled web--until he makes one final, irreversible mistake.
Wayne’s plot was made to gallop, and it does not disappoint ... It’s not just the sex that’s provocative; it’s the way the reader is steadily pulled into Conor’s dilemma... to the point that some of his actions seem almost justifiable. It takes a long time narratively to root against him at all.
[A] well-paced, smart, class-obsessed thriller ... The tone of The Winner has a creepy Highsmithian placidity, coolly measured while depicting bad things being done and cannily covering up the evidence ... 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.
Wayne skillfully orchestrates the whipsaw in [Conor's] consciousness between reproachful self-knowledge and slimy self-justification ... Class is a subject seldom addressed in contemporary American fiction ... Teddy Wayne’s latest makes a welcome contribution to the neglected subject.
