Teddy Wayne drops two clues in his novel The Winner’s epigraphs. First, “A little water clears us of this deed” from Macbeth. A sinister sign for what’s ahead. And then, from Allen Fox’s Think to Win: The Strategic Dimension of Tennis, “The true defensive player (or ‘dinker,’ as he is unaffectionately called in recreational circles) is prepared to hit ten, twenty, or more balls in the court per point…Dinkers understand the facts of life at the recreational level of tennis.” Both choices shed light on the narrative arc: dark, bloody waters ahead and defensive court volleys to score recreational points in a game. That’s our direction in this novel. The Winner transports us into wealthy, elitist Wasp America, and it sets up its social satire through tennis lessons and dark relationship triangles of sex, violence, lies, and concealment. It’s an entertaining, and darkly brutal twisting of the “rags to riches” tale, as it pokes at the dark heart of the American story of success at all costs.
