Wicked Women (Weldon, Fay)

Description

Via 20 madcap tales, Fay Weldon takes readers into a world peopled with therapists who blithely destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers whose greatest cruelty is their indifference, and clever women navigating the perils of domesticity. Her wicked humor and seasoned wisdom are as evident here as always--and tempered by great compassion for the foibles of the human heart.

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Fay Weldon is a writer who understands the value of holding a grudge. Who can forget the years-long vengeance the heroine of her best-known book, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, exacted on her faithless husband and the romance writer who stole him from her? Even the physical extremes to which Weldon's scorned wife goes in order to remake herself in the image of her rival--including broken bones and plastic surgery--are worth it when she finally succeeds in destroying their lives. Horrifying as the conceit might seem in real life, Weldon's fictional revenge, whether served hot or cold, is a most tasty dish. In Wicked Women, a collection of short stories, Fay Weldon continues her one-writer crusade to ensure that bad people get exactly what's coming to them.

But if Fay Weldon's stories are dark, they are also savagely satirical. In "Santa Claus's New Clothes," the children of a recently divorced father have some telling questions for their not-so-nice new stepmother, who also happens to be their father's former therapist. In "Not Even a Blood Relation," a mother turns the tables on her three heartless daughters in a manner sure to delight the reader. Weldon has a clear-eyed view of right and wrong--not for her are the concepts of no-fault divorce or infidelity without consequence--and in her fiction, if not in life, victims receive Fay Weldon's fierce brand of justice.

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Auto da Fay: A Memoir

Description

An autobiography from a wickedly funny writer who never fails to amuse Fay Weldon, one of England's best selling and most celebrated authors, looks back on her life as wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, antifeminist, and bon vivant in this frank and funny memoir. Born Franklin Birkinshaw in 1931, Fay spent her youth in New Zealand with her sister, mother, and grandmother before moving to England. Later Fay had to scrape by as an unwed mother in London, trying marriage, then advertising, and then writing on her own. She closes her memoir as she drops what will be her first success, a television play, into a mailbox on her way to the hospital to give birth. Riddled with Weldon's customarily fierce opinions, this frank and absorbing memoir is vintage Fay. An icon to many, a thorn in the flesh to others, she has never failed to excite, madden, or interest. With this engaging autobiography, she has finally decided to turn her authorial wit and keen eye on herself.

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Customer Reviews

Sheer delight
Auto Da Fay is about as good as autobiography gets. Fay Weldon has a wonderful zest for life and a larger than life-size personality that comes through on every page. It's the sort of book that cheers you up and restores your faith in human nature.

A Good Boy Tomorrow: Memoirs of A Fundamentalist Upbringing
Basic Flying Instruction: A Comprehensive Introduction to Western Philosophy

2008-01-29 (Kempsford, United Kingdom) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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An Utterly Delightful Autobiography
Fay Weldon is the author of twenty-four novels, five short story collections, two children's books, four works of nonfiction, several plays, and now AUTO DA FAY, a memoir. This delightful autobiography is imbued with the same audaciousness and perspicacity as is her other works. As a woman of deep insights she highlights the key, transcendent events of her life. On page one, titled "Pre-name", she writes, "I long for a day of judgment when the plot lines of our lives will be neatly tied, and all puzzles explained, and the meaning of events made clear. We take to fiction ... because no such thing is going to happen, and at least on the printed page we can observe beginnings, middles and ends, and can find out where morality resides." She declares that, while life moves into entropy, each individual does the best with the hand s/he is dealt.

Weldon was born in 1931 and raised in a rural New Zealand town called Napier. She was the daughter of a troubled but creative mother who, along with Fay and her sister Jane, was abandoned by Fay's father, a selfish, philandering doctor named Frank Birkinshaw. The girls attended a private parochial school and, early on, Fay displayed her dislike for authority and disdain for pomposity. "Mother Teresa was nice and motherly, and would hug you and give you sticky treats: all the others ... ruled by sarcasm and violence. I liked their names, but that was about all."

When the sisters wanted to baptize the girls, Fay's mother wouldn't allow it. She describes her parents as "... freethinkers, rationalists - humanists" and, while Jane had been christened as a Protestant, Fay had not even had that benediction to her name. This state of her soul meant that Fay was excluded from much at school and learned to enjoy her own company. She also had to learn to take care of herself and approach life's challenges with a sense of humor. She says she was the 'good' girl, always wanting to please.

Affable or not, Fay grew up in a strange milieu that was often as perplexing as it was pleasing. She attended school, made friends, and her relationship with her troubled mother was as exasperating as any normal girl finds her mother to be, even under the best of circumstances --- and these women certainly didn't have it easy. In 1946, at the end of World War II, upon the death of a relative, Fay's mother received an inheritance of ... "nine hundred pounds." This gift changed all of their lives because it allowed them to go to England. There, the schools Fay attended and the people she met offered the opportunity for her to nurture her genius for writing.

Weldon's life, at times, unfolds like the lives her heroines lead: she became pregnant and gave birth to a son; she married a man whom she thought would take care of her, but didn't want to have sex with her and insisted he be her pimp; she went to work for an ad agency and did so well that she wrote herself out of a job; and twists of fate kept her on a journey into an interesting life that keeps going on and on. Her words are but amulets of power, both here and in her other writing. She uses well her flawless sense of timing to limn her own story effectively and inspirationally. Weldon's fans will delight in visiting the places, sharing the experiences, and looking within themselves, as she does, and asking some of the same questions about life, love, work, parenting, survival and family. But Fay Weldon will deny this. She says of herself that she does not enjoy the journey inward. She does not enjoy examining 'who she is'.

But fortunately for us, she does raise 'those' deep questions; the ones we all struggle with and, fundamentally, Fay Weldon is as unconventional in her writing as she is in her life. Her honest approach to her writing reflects her observations as they regard the 'war between the sexes' and the roles people play in their relationships. This memoir ends when she is getting on with her first novel, THE FAT WOMAN'S JOKE, and the rest is, as they say, history. Enjoy!

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

2003-06-14 (New York, New York) | Helpful Votes: 12 | Rating: 5

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Remember Me

Description

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Customer Reviews

one of Weldon's weaker books - unfortunately
Having heard many praises and recommendations for Fay Weldon, I went to the library and picked the first book I saw, which happened to be "Remember Me".

The satirical story of several people, connected by sexual ties and/or marriage, involving their children and details of their social positions, has a great potential. Madeleine, the first wife of Jarvis, lives with her twelve-year old daughter, Hilary, and struggles with finances and depression. Jarvis, happily married for the second time to Lily, the butcher's daughter with middle-class ambitions, and with a baby son is reluctant to give Madeleine more money and Hilary more attention. The second couple are Phillip, the doctor, and his wife, Margot, who works for Jarvis as his part-time secretary. Margot feels unsatisfied with her marriage and focuses her attention on Jarvis, because of one night's party sex in remote past, long escaped from Jarvis' memory.

Madeleine is desperate to make Jarvis miserable and to be remembered, so she devises a cunning plan to get her revenge...

The problem with this novel is, that despite its potential, the importance of the issues tackled, and the attempt to satirical humor, there are many shortcomings. The characters are flat, undeveloped and one-dimensional. This could be fine with satire, but it is too far stretched. The irony is too bold and the humor not funny. It is as if the author wanted to get even to the most unintelligent people on the planet. Ambitious task... Considering the pool of readers for this type of fiction.

I thought that I expected too much from this acclaimed feminist author, but, luckily, it seems that I have just chosen the wrong book to start. I would not recommend it to anybody, who does not know Weldon's works. It can be read later, to get the full scope, but not as the first one and definitely not as the representative one.

2006-09-08 (MD, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Remember Me

Product Details

• Notes:
• ISBN13: 9780007109265
• Prerequisite: USED - VERY GOOD

Description

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.

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Customer Reviews

one of Weldon's weaker books - unfortunately
Having heard many praises and recommendations for Fay Weldon, I went to the library and picked the first book I saw, which happened to be "Remember Me".

The satirical story of several people, connected by sexual ties and/or marriage, involving their children and details of their social positions, has a great potential. Madeleine, the first wife of Jarvis, lives with her twelve-year old daughter, Hilary, and struggles with finances and depression. Jarvis, happily married for the second time to Lily, the butcher's daughter with middle-class ambitions, and with a baby son is reluctant to give Madeleine more money and Hilary more attention. The second couple are Phillip, the doctor, and his wife, Margot, who works for Jarvis as his part-time secretary. Margot feels unsatisfied with her marriage and focuses her attention on Jarvis, because of one night's party sex in remote past, long escaped from Jarvis' memory.

Madeleine is desperate to make Jarvis miserable and to be remembered, so she devises a cunning plan to get her revenge...

The problem with this novel is, that despite its potential, the importance of the issues tackled, and the attempt to satirical humor, there are many shortcomings. The characters are flat, undeveloped and one-dimensional. This could be fine with satire, but it is too far stretched. The irony is too bold and the humor not funny. It is as if the author wanted to get even to the most unintelligent people on the planet. Ambitious task... Considering the pool of readers for this type of fiction.

I thought that I expected too much from this acclaimed feminist author, but, luckily, it seems that I have just chosen the wrong book to start. I would not recommend it to anybody, who does not know Weldon's works. It can be read later, to get the full scope, but not as the first one and definitely not as the representative one.

2006-09-08 (MD, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Female Friends (Cassandra Editions)

Description

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The Life and Loves of a She Devil

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780345323750
• Ready: NEW
• Notes: Mark New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

This is not a book for everyone, but its admirers are vigorously enthusiastic. For example:
Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it ". . . a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
Or Rosalyn Drexler, who said on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, "It affords a scintillating, mindboggling, vicarious thrill for any reader who has ever fantasized dishing out retribution for one wrong or another."
Or Carol E. Rinzler, who wrote on The Washington Post Book World's front page, ". . . what makes this a powerfully funny and oddly powerful book is the energy of the language and of the intellect that conceived it, an energy that vibrates off the pages and that makes SHE-DEVIL as exceptional a book in the remembering as in the reading . . . . a small, mad masterpiece."

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Customer Reviews

Too bad Hollywood butchered the movie rendition
Fay Weldon was in the zone when she penned this masterpiece, and that pen of hers cuts like a knife. The movie made from this book is the worst butchering of a story I've ever been unfortunate enough to encounter. On the other hand the BBC did an excellent adaption as a mini-series by remaining quite faithful to the book. This novel could be quite dangerous in the hands of the wrong woman. :-)

2009-01-13 | Roy L. Pickering Jr. - Author of PATCHES OF GREY http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0578005816/ref=nosim/porfessionalp4-20 (NJ) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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revenge is bittersweet
Well, I saw very pleasantly surprised at the good quality. Would do business with this seller again.

2008-12-12 | TA (florida) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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A Very Dark Comedy: A Review For Those Who've Seen The Movie "She-Devil" starring Meryl Streep
This review is for those who've seen the movie.
This review contains SPOILERS for the book.

I was happily watching a favorite comedy, 'She Devil' starring Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, and Ed Bagley Jr. when suddenly something caught my eye that I'd never noticed before; "Based on the novel by Fay Weldon." Immediately, I ran out and bought the book. Because of this, my review contains references to both book and movie.

Ruth is a woman ignored her whole life, even by her own parents. She's the ugly duckling who never turned into a swan; an object of pity, not love. Ruth hates being tall; tall women get the modeling jobs, but not tall women like Ruth. Ruth Patchett is 6'2" tall, square jawed, four moles on her face, heavy boned, clumsy, ungainly, and emotional. She's also in love ... in love with Hate, and in love with her husband "bobbo", who in turn is in love with Mary Fisher, a petite and rich romance novelist. Mary Fisher lives in a converted lighthouse on the sea's edge, a romantic setting for a romantic woman in love.

Yes, Ruth burns her house down after Bob leaves and drops the kids off with him, then sets about ruining Bob's life until his short prison stay makes him realize how worthy a wife she was, with the happy hinting that life goes on and somehow they'll work it out. That's there the movie and the book part ways. The movie is a true comedy, highly worthy of a purchase for your humor library of DVD's. The book has humor in it, but the book is dark and filled with tragedy and intense self hatred manifested in every way possible.

The Ruth played by Rosanne Barr in the movie was overweight, an easily fixable condition, as was the mole she had removed from her face. The Ruth in the book is genetically ugly, not so easily fixed. Having been unloved by her own parents and kicked out of the house at age 16 so her step-father could use her room for his train sets, her self-loathing is deeply ingrained from childhood up. Her and Bobbo's marriage is pretty much arranged by his parents, whom Ruth was working for, to get Bobbo out of the house so they could go back to living in hotels as they preferred. Bobbo explains to Ruth they have an open marriage, and proceeds to tell Ruth of every affair he has, calling her his "best friend" as he shares how much love he holds for Mary Fisher. But when he finally announces he's divorcing Ruth to marry Mary, Ruth's compliance snaps.

In the book, Ruth burns her house down and drops the kids off at Mary Fisher's, then leaves them for good. She never returns for her own children, and never feels a pang of regret for doing it. Her own self hatred is too intense, her own feelings is that she was a bad mother and not worth having the children to begin with. She doesn't particularly like her children simply because they are a part of her. She sleeps with men who mean nothing to her, then finds employment at the nursing home Mary Fisher's mother, Pearl, is residing. After seeing to it that Pearl is returned to Mary Fisher's "palace by the sea" by emptying bedpans on her mattress (incontinence is not allowed at the home - this book was written in 1983, pre-Depends times)

Put on your glasses, with shades the color of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and take a good look at Ruth. Ruth herself steals money from Bobbo's accounts, using their joint fund he'd previously cleared out. Ruth finds a man who can help her change identities, and becomes first Vesta Rose, then Polly Patch, then multiple other identities. She uses every person whose life she moves through, both sexually and emotionally, both male and female, to achieve her goals. But her goal is confusing until close to the end: Ruth wants to be the one woman Bobbo wants to be married to, and have Bobbo love her, so Ruth must be Mary Fisher. Literally.

While Mary Fisher's lifestyle declines (she and Bobbo never did marry because Ruth Patchett was a "missing person" so Bobbo couldn't legally divorce her) she's forced to care for Bobbo's children during his incarceration, and for her mother. The real estate market is down; she's lost all her other houses to carrying the legal debts incurred by Bobbo, and now must sell her crumbling lighthouse below market level price. She grows old and fades, her books don't fare as well, and above all, she gets cancer. When Mary Fisher dies, she is reborn; through extensive and life threatening plastic surgeries. Her house is bought by a mysterious millionaires who's money has done quite well in the investment markets. Mary Fisher lives on.

All the blurbs call it "bright and funny". It's not. It's very dark, humorous at times, but a black look at the human condition. This isn't a book of revenge, it's a book of self-hatred so intense that it's pathological. This is a sad book, a bitter book, a book about a women who's accepted by others but not by herself. A woman who goes to dangerous and life-threatening procedures to completely alter herself into another woman's physical projection. My five stars for this book are deserved. It's a well written journey into self-imposed hell, a hell without the boundaries of shame or degradation or regret. Every word is another step. You must pick up this book and read it, for your own good. There is humor but it's very dark, and I myself would call this a horror story and align it with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I simply cannot get this absorbing book out of my mind. You want humor, watch the movie, you want tragedy, read the book. Solid 5 stars, definitely worth a purchase. Enjoy!

2008-12-09 | Schtinky (California) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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One of the few. . .
. . .novels where it's a good premise, but I actually liked the movie adaptation better.

I can believe that Ruth would indeed turn as dark and cynical and manipulative as she does in the novel.

What I have a hard time swallowing is that

1) She manages to cast aside enough of her personal inhibitions to use the means that she uses to wreak general havoc--shades of _Naked Came the Stranger_, for those of you who have read that. The movie is superior here not only because one would like to think that revenge on that scale _is_ possible without resorting to those means, but a woman who grew up thinking herself plain and not having had much luck in love is rather unlikely to hit on that as a method in any case.

2) That after all Bobbo has done to her, that she'd even _think_ of wanting him back afterward, let alone going through what she does in order to achieve that goal.

Sure, read the book, but take it with a grain of salt.

2008-04-06 (Bloomington, IN United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Forget the movie - read this book!
Many people will have seen the movie based on this book, starring Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep. I found the film reasonably entertaining, but ultimately forgettable.

So, reading this book was a pleasant surprise. It's infinitely funnier than the film and Weldon constructs her tale of revenge and retribution with a savage, hilarious wit. Be warned, however, that the story is considerably darker than the movie.

2008-01-25 (San Francisco) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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