Book Review: Winkie

When I first saw the cover for Winkie I knew I had to read it. You see this funny looking teddy bear sitting in a metal chair in an interrogation room. And then you read the jacket and you just have to buy it. Winkie, by Clifford Chase, is the story of a little teddy bear that wills himself to life. He has been the plaything for six children and has finally been forgotten and left on a shelf. He decides that he can move and then does. He escapes the house and goes to the woods to live. 

...And then he ends up convicted of international terrorism. 

You start the book with Winkie's arrest and the story then follows him through the flashbacks of his life as a toy, his escape, his life with his child, and his trial. Clifford Chase tells a remarkably warm, funny, and sometimes silly story which you can love from the beginning. Winkie is a wonderful narrator mixing flashbacks with current times. You just want to be nice to him. How can you not...he's a teddy bear. Chase has fun with his supporting characters, the overzealous cops, the bumbling lawyer, and the family who is cruel and kind, sometimes at the same time. 

The plot is interesting and far from predictable but when Chase reaches his trial scenes he finally loses me. I could imagine the bear coming to life. I could imagine the fanatical cops. I could imagine the baby's story and the bomber in the woods. But Chase decides to pull out all the stops with the trial. He has actors (as witnesses) portraying characters from as far back as Socrates times. These are all set in a modern courtroom. The trial is a farce but not in a good way. It is far too unbelievable. I would have been more content with a rabid post 911 court that is just looking to punish. This pushes the boundaries to far and breaks all the rules. Chase writes a solid story but loses his audience at the end. When the poor bear gets to sentencing we no longer really care what he is being sentenced for. This would have been a great book about how post-911 fear of terrorism goes too far but somehow Chase just takes his story way too far out there. It is still an imaginative original story with great characters though.