Boating for Beginners
Jeanette Winterson
Noah is a relatively ordinary man. He's a hard worker (he owns the thriving little pleasure boat company, <i>Boating for Beginners</i>),
 is slightly overweight and has a heart condition. In fact, apart from a
 bizarre antipathy towards frozen food, particularly Black Forest
Gateau, he is Mr. Bog Standard. That doesn't stop him from recognising a
 good thing when he sees it though. So when he accidentally creates God
"out of a piece of gateau and a giant electric toaster", he realises
he's onto a winner. Within weeks, he's a cult figure, writes extravagant
 bestsellers-"Genesis", or How I did It and "Exodus" or Your Way Lies
There--and has outlawed refrigerators and Black Forest Gateau. When Noah
 starts to turn his bestseller into a film, God feels left out and
decides to liquidate the world. Noah has less than a week to fill his
stage set (the ark) with animals and prepare for a flood. There are
three women who find out what he's up to--Desi, Noah's daughter-in-law;
Marlene, a transsexual potter, and Gloria, the thoughtful yet slightly
unbalanced girl in charge of rounding up the animals. Gloria is the
heroine of <i>Boating for Beginners</i> and it is her story that drives the rather fragmented narrative of this surreal satire. Bursting with ideas, <i>Boating for Beginners</i>
 rewrites religion and philosophy, while taking a pop at romantic
fiction. It is perhaps Jeanette Winterson's most overlooked work and
although not her best--turn to <i>Oranges are Not the Only Fruit</i> or <i>Sexing the Cherry</i> for that--<i>Boating for Beginners</i> is witty, playful and imaginative.