Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

In 1816, a group of young radicals from England gather overseas in a villa.  They include Lord Byron, the poet Shelley, a doctor, Shelley's wife, Mary, and Mary's stepsister who is Byron's lover.  There is not much to do as it rains incessantly.  Bored, Byron challenges everyone to write a new work, including the nineteen year old Mary.  She writes the story of Frankenstein, which she uses to explore her feelings about how each individual has their own worth and every person should be free to experiment and live to their fullest potential.

In modern age Britain, Ry Shelley, a descendant of Mary, is a doctor and a transgender who is making the transition from life as a woman to that of a man.  He meets a brilliant scientist, Victor Stein, who is interested in how life can be defined, the field of artificial intelligence and the quest for immortality.  Ry is willing to help at first, bringing Victor discarded limbs for his experiments but she hesitates when he reveals the full range of his experiments and what he is willing to do to push the barriers of what it means to be human.

This novel was a longlist nominee for the Booker Prize last year.  It is an interesting mix of the two time periods and what it means to be human in each era.  In the early 1800's, it is the ability for women to be treated as full citizens of the countries they inhabit.  In modern times, it is the ability of each person to define basic facts about themselves such as gender and appearance, to do the work they desire and to push the frontiers of knowledge.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.