Bøker av Fay Weldon

Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge.A blackly comic satire of the war of the sexes, THE LIFE AND LOVES OF A SHE DEVIL is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real.

An astonishing audiobook that probes into the strange world of genetic engineering. Joanna May thought herself unique, indivisible - until one day, to her hideous shock, she discovered herself to be five: though childless she was a mother; though an only child she was surrounded by sisters young enough to be her daughers - Jane, Julie, Gina and Alice, the clones of Joanna May. How will they withstand the shock of first meeting? And what of the avenging Carl, Joanna's former husband and the clones' creator: will he take revenge for his wife's infidelity and destroy her sisters one by one? In this astonishing novel, Fay Weldon weaves a web of paradox quite awesome in its cunning. Probing into the strange world of genetic engineering, The Cloning of Joanna May raises frightening questions about our identity as individuals - and provides some startling answers. Funny, serious, revolutionary, this is the work of a master storyteller at the height of her powers.

The river has burst its banks and Cynthia, with her leg in plaster, watches as her husband and daughters Angela and Jane try to save their antiques business. But the animosity between the sisters is apparent and an announcement by Angela opens up another flood - this time of family secrets!

Trendy magazine Femina offers two contrasting wives - country-bumpkin Anne and sophisticate Cat - £1000 to swap places for a week to compare lifestyles. Anne goes to London to run the chic apartment of Cat''s advertising executive husband, while Cat journeys to deepest Devon to cook, clean and care for gentle, sexually-repressed, shopkeeper Derek. Violent snowstorms mean that Cat and Derek are cut off, and when the snow ploughs eventually arrive the life-swap has become a wife-swap.|3 women, 2 men

A witty, astutely observed study of sexual politics in contemporary society which centres on an all-female reading group. Oriole wants to study contemporary authors, while Anne prefers well-known classics. Pondering the relative merits, the women reveal themselves, their personalities echoing the literary heroines. But not everyone is there for literature. Nefarious designs are uncovered and tensions rise to a dramatic climax.5 women, 2 men

This is a study of the shifting inter-relationships between three young couples, following the developments with sympathy and a certain ironic humour, through a span of twenty-five years.3 women, 3 men

'The women of the world gave up romance, subservience and submission, and once empowered, took to hard work, truth and reality. Much good has it done them.' Ruth Patchett, the original She Devil, is now eighty-four and keen to retire. But who can take up her mantle? Enter Tyler Patchett, our new kind of heroine and Ruth's grandson. He's an ultra-confident, twenty-three-year-old man: beautiful, resentful and unemployed. Tyler won't be satisfied until he can transition into the ultimate symbol of power and status. In Fay Weldon's 1983 classic, The Life and Loves of a She Devil, women fought men for power and won. In 2017, men take a decisive step to get their power back...

An absorbing, inventive novel of love, death and aristocracy in inter-war London.

One of Britian's best loved writers chooses her best short stories from her career at the forefront of contemporary fiction.

A selection of lectures and essays contributed to newspapers, magazines and books over recent years, revised for this volume and all highly relevant to today.In these essays find a portrait of the times, to help us map our way through the new Garden of Eden, in which men hold the baby and women the mobile phone. The garden is timeless, its beauties are ineradicable, the angel's blazing sword no longer bars the way - so what's going wrong? Tricky to see the wood for the trees in this new-old land, hard to find a Third Way through: let this collection point the way.From the changing face of government, the feminisation of politics, the stamping of the warrior foot, to whence and whither Feminism, via the dangerous new cult of Therapism, to our turbulent and benighted Royals, brushing up against the famous (Roseanne, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jean Paul Gaultier) on the way - it's all here. Plus a rare glimpse of the author's life and loves.

A classic tale of how a perfectly knitted life can unravel in the space of days.

How many women can you fit into one body? A novel of split personalities. A marriage, its breakdown, and a perforated heroine: one woman, many faces, many personalities, and more emerging: a crumbling house, and the rooms of that house (which in our dreams are aspects of the self). Any more trauma and it's all over!Sir Edwin Rice has decided to divorce Lady Angelica, ex-rock star. She has behaved intolerably. He petitions the Court to set him free. Angelica fights back. She is not what he thinks - but then what woman ever is? Angelica takes a job as secretary to her husband's divorce solicitor - only to find one false personality leading to another. How is she to find herself: amongst good wife Angelica, Angel the tart, Jelly the secretary, all-male Ajax, Angela the hopeless - and only one body, albeit a beautiful one, to go round between the lot of them?

Weldon on top form; Weldon tackling love, sex, ageing, death; Weldon at her wittiest best; Weldon unparalleled.Sophia is a thirty-four-year-old film editor living in Soho. Her only living relation (she thinks), her grandmother Felicity, is an eighty-three-year-old widow (several times) living in smart Connecticut. Sophia is torn between her delight in her freedom and a nagging desire for the family ties that everyone else grumbles about: casual sex is all very well, but who do you spend Christmas with? Her current bed-mate seems to be in love with a glamorous Hollywood film star (not that Sophia cares, of course: she's a New Woman); her mad mother is dead. All she has is Felicity.But Felicity is not your average granny. Temperamental, sophisticated, chic (and alarmingly eccentric), she has seen much of life, love and sex and is totally prepared to see more. Even if it is from a twilight home (The Golden Bowl Complex for Creative Retirement)...Twilight is not at all Felicity's idea of fun; and quite possibly she has more idea of fun than her granddaughter.As the two women's stories unravel, the past rears up with all its grimness and irony; but points the way to a future that may redeem them both.

'Sparkling, sharply observing, insights delivered with a light touch that puts us in a good mood, however dark the comedy' SpectatorHere are nineteen glittery new tales about the way we live now, as lovers, partners, children, parents. Or alone.Stories of passion, desire, and necessary restraint;of the near future, the recent past;of old habits, new technology;of won't-be mothers and would-be fathers;of houses, ancient and modern.Stories, in fact, to enlighten us to the true and timeless nature of the human condition in this the new age of self-knowledge.

A turbine-driven fantasy of love and revenge, values and morals: a witty and compellng elixir.

A novel about the perfect pair - or are they?Annette and Spicer make a perfect pair: he thirty-nine, wide-shouldered, square-jawed, and often likened to Harrison Ford; she slight, fair, delicately featured, and sometimes likened to Meryl Streep. He with a son (Jason, eleven) from a previous marriage, she with a daughter (Susan, thirteen) from a ditto. He and she, after ten years, expecting their own baby. But on this, the first day of the rest of their blissful lives, Spicer fails to kiss Annette goodbye as he leaves for the office.

This copulative sotry of passion, jealousy, fidelity and faithlessness is Weldon at her most provocative.

Fay Weldon's first novel, a sharp and witty parable of the way people see themselves.For several weeks, Esther Sussman had lived in a sordid flat in Earls Court. During the day she read science fiction novels. In the evenings she watched television. And she ate, and ate, and drank, and ate. She had not felt so secure since she spent her days in a pram. It had been her husband's idea that they should go on a diet. Together they would fight middle-age flab and feel young again. It was the diet that had made Esther leave home. The lack of food had made her see things very clearly and she had looked at her life - the daily dusting, sweeping, cooking, washing-up - and found it all pointless. She had not felt strong enough for marriage, and so she escaped.From the fastness of her Earls Court retreat Esther starts to recount the events leading up to her revelation to her friend Phyllis. 'I suppose you really do believe your happiness is consequent upon your size?' she asks. Phyllis does; Esther does not and triumphantly sets out to prove her point.

An adventure story where love triumphs over lust, good will over satanic forces in the spirit of Dickens.

With her inimitable wit and insight, Fay Weldon offers her wisdom on the subject of female happiness and how to achieve it.What makes women happy? Nothing, for more than ten minutes at a time, so stop worrying.In this book, Fay Weldon offers wisdom gleaned from a remarkable life, a brilliantly successful career and a fair share of trouble. She explores what makes women happy; how our lives, jobs, families, bodies, desires, morals and responsibilities affect that happiness, and what we can do to lead more rounded and desirable lives. As she delivers the verdicts, she also delivers short stories, or perhaps parables, to prove her points. To be good, she concludes, is to be happy, to be happy is to be good. The Victorians had it right.A blend of philosophy, storytelling and self-help, this inspirational work shows Weldon at the peak of her creative powers, brisk, stylish and entertaining.

A savagely satirical tale of marital revenge.Madeleine wants revenge; Madeleine wants to be remembered: Madeleine wants love. Who doesn't? Madeleine is ex-wife and chief persecutor of Jarvis, the architect. Why not? She hates him. Hilary is their daughter, growing fatter and lumpier every day under Madeleine's triumphant care, and witness to the wrongs her mother suffered.For Jarvis has a clean new life with a clean new wife, Lily, and a nice new baby, Jonathan. The furniture is polished and there is orange juice for breakfast. Jarvis is content, or thinks he is, fending off Madeleine's forays as best he can.Jarvis has a part-time secretary too - Margot, now the doctor's wife, unremembered from the days of her youth. Margot, unacknowledged wife and mother, accepting, tending, nurturing his children and her own, complaisant in her lot.Then Madeleine, hurling out her dark reproaches from the other side of violent death, uncovers new familial links in the disruption she creates.

Be careful who you invite into the bosom of your home - she may never leave...A novel from Fay Weldon, the writer who knows women better than they know themselves.Hattie has a difficult if loving partner, Martyn, an absentee mother, Lallie, and a cynical if attentive grandmother Frances. She tries to do the right and moral thing in a tricky world, and always has. But she now has a baby, Kitty, which makes true morality rather harder to achieve. Somehow, money has to be earned. Into this household comes Agnieszka, from Poland, a domestic paragon. But is she friend or foe? And even if she is foe, and seems likely to bring the domestic world crashing down around their ears, can they afford to let her go? Well, no.Martyn works for a political magazine, Hattie for a literary agency. At work, too, integrity is suffering as the need for compromise becomes ever more pressing. And always in the background is Frances, tracing the family and social history. And not just family and society but the dwelling houses too; and all those girls and women (the au pairs, the child-minders, the cleaners) who've made Hattie what she is. Not to forget that hefty dollop of male genes which has also played its part - for Hattie's is a lively and none too respectable background - and now, finally, Agnieszka, come to claim her rightful heritage - which is, let's face it, everything. Will Hattie go to the wall? And poor little Kitty...Or will rescue come?

A chilling tale that interweaves the post-Watergate world of American politics and the way in which our past indiscretions inevitably catch up with us.Isabel Acre's journey through life has taken her from the Australian outback via the beds and alleys of Fleet Street and the seamier side of Washington high life to a comfortable home in London, a reputation as a serious journalist, and a husband in the new chore-sharing, child-rearing mould. Suddenly, however, the past which Isabel had thought safely behind her becomes the source of actual physical danger. With frightening ease, the worlds of political intrigue and murderous conspiracy intrude into the cosiness of her domestic life. Whom can she trust? Man? When she reveals to her husband that she long ago had an affair with a young American senator, a man who is now challenging for the Presidential nomination itself, and that her son is the love-child of that affair, even she cannot foresee the consequences. Love got her into the predicament in which she finds herself; but can love now get her out of it?

At 6.30pm one Thursday, Natalie Harris's world fell apart when she discovered her husband, Harry Harris, had eloped with Miss Eddon Gurney 1978.

Alice is an eighteen-year-old student and aspiring novelist with green spiky hair, a child of the modern age who recoils at the idea of reading Jane Austen. In a sequence of letters reminiscent of Jane Austen's to her own neice, 'aunt' Fay examines the rewards of such study. Not only is her correspondence a revealing tribute to a great writer - it is also an original and rewarding exploration of the craft of fiction itself.

A provocative view of modern society weaved into a tale of explosive love and, perhaps, even, black magic.