SOURCE: Waugh, Teresa. “A Fine Balancing Act on the Tightrope of Fantasy.” Spectator 285 (9 September 2000): 38–39.

In the following positive review, Waugh evaluates the strengths of The PowerBook.

The sparkling originality of Jeanette Winterson's new novel, The.PowerBook, is all the more enjoyable for being, despite its extraordinary flights of fantasy and a rich mixture of literary and historical references, entirely unpretentious. This writer may sometimes have been accused of showing off, but if she is doing so here, it is with such wit and subtlety and so much for the reader's pleasure that it is a joy. This reviewer for one was as delighted by Winterson's recipe for tomato sauce as by her list of great and ruinous lovers which rates Burton and Taylor, Oscar and Bosie alongside the likes of Tristan and Isolde and Paolo and Francesca.

The novel takes place—if it can truly be said to...