Showing results by author "Fay Weldon" in All Categories

Raised by a mad mother and a half-mad sister, abandoned by her father, Praxis Duveen is a master of the art of survival. Her life, indeed, has been full: two marriages, unsuccessful; a brief but profitable career as a prostitute; a little dabbling in incest; a mercy killing; and an inadvertent reign as both apostle and victim of the women's movement. Buffeted and battered by life, Praxis has survived with energy and humor intact.

There's a gathering of high-achieving ladies at the remote and expensive Castle Spa over the 10 days of Christmas and New Year. None of them have met before. Have they no homes to go to? Why have they put their lives on hold? Perhaps they think they've come to seek (through Botox, aromatherapy, and extravagant pampering) a better understanding of their lives?

Respectable wife, unmarried mother, divorcee, femme fatale - these are roles that society demands from Scarlet, Jocelyn, Helen, Susan and Audrey. But things do not slot neatly into pigeon holes, and as the women negotiate around the events in their lives, they discover their real selves.

It’s 2013, and 80-year-old Frances (has-been writer) is sitting on the stairs of No.3 Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill, listening to the debt collectors pounding on her front door. From this house she’s witnessed five decades of world history. While she waits for the bailiffs to give up and leave, Frances writes. She writes about the boyfriends she borrowed and the husband she stole from Fay, about her daughters and their children. The problem is that fact and fiction are blurring in Frances’s mind.

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.

When Ruth Pratchett discovers her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy she becomes truly diabolic, embarking on a course of destruction which brings those around her their just deserts and herself an amazing reward. This is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real: wild, funny, true.

Fay Weldon reads from her introduction to Corinthians. A figurehead of the early Christian church, Paul sets out some of his thoughts on strife and division, spirituality, the bond of marriage and hopes for his own immortality in this book. Her introduction is preceded by a reading from the book by Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh.

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.   

How to be a reader - how to be a writer. All you need to know. Alice is an 18-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 niece, '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. 

Walter Matthau stars in the story of a climate scientist trying to balance romance and research. The piece is both serious and surreal as Matthau removes the “fourth wall” while addressing the show’s recording engineer. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Barbara Bain, Zeljko Ivanek and Valerie Landsburg. Directed by Shaun McLoughlin. Recorded before a live audience in Santa Monica, California, in June 1992.

A novel about split personality, about the components of the self and genetic engineering. It tells the fate of Joanna May, who at the age of 60 discovers that she has been cloned and there are in fact four other versions of herself in existence.

In Eden Grove leben lauter glückliche Frauen. Ihre Ehemänner sind erfolgreich. Sie haben muntere Kinder und das Familienleben ist ganz harmonisch. Eden Grove ist eine friedliche kleine Welt - aber nicht für alle. Es gibt zum Beispiel die unattraktive Ruth. Gattin eines Steuerberaters und Mutter zweier Kinder. Ruth ist loyal, und sie erträgt lange die sexuellen Eskapaden ihres Mannes. Aber es kommt der Punkt, an dem Ruth die Geduld verliert. Sie dreht den Spieß um und plant einen Rachefeldzug.

Vær forsigtig med, hvem du inviterer indenfor - måske rejser hun aldrig igen... Hattie er en fornuftig ung kvinde. Hun arbejder i bogbranchen og danner par med Martyn, som er journalist med politiske ambitioner. De er et helt igennem vellykket, ungt par med barn og eget hus i London. Det var egentlig meningen, at Hattie skulle gå hjemme med deres lille datter. Men Hattie må erkende, at der er en verden til forskel mellem tanken om et barn og virkeligheden med et barn.

Consider Vivien in November 1922: she is 24 and a spinster. She wears fashionable clothes, but she is plain and - almost worse in those times - intelligent. At nearly six feet tall, she is known unkindly by her family as 'the giantess'. Fortunately Vivien is rich, so she can travel to London and bribe a charismatic gentleman publisher to marry her. What he does not know is that Vivien is pregnant with another man's child and will die in childbirth in just a few months....

Fay Weldon samler her sine yndlingsnoveller, som hun har skrevet over fire forskellige årtier: 70'erne, 80'erne, 90'erne og 00'erne. I sit eget forord reflekterer Weldon over, hvordan kvinders plads i samfundet har aendret sig over disse fire årtier, fra stadig at vaere delvist undertrykt i hjemmet i 70'erne til at vaere nødsaget til at finde arbejde i 00'erne. Indeholder også nye historier

Eleanor Darcy, a woman of marginal genealogy and looks that play better than they should, is married to the economist to whom the Prime Minister listens. Determined to rip apart the old order and start fresh, Eleanor becomes the serpent - or angel - who whispers utopian visions in Julian Darcy's ear. With the husband in jail for imperiling the financial structure of the nation, Eleanor grants exclusive interviews to two journalists, Hugo Vansitart and Valerie Jones. Though they seem more preoccupied with each other than with their elusive subject, their goal is the same: to capture the essence of Eleanor Darcy.

They thought they were attending a benign military lecture at the illustrious Shrapnel Academy, housed in one of England's grand manors and dedicated to the memory of Henry Shrapnel, genius inventor of the cannonball. But the weekend is not peaceful. Perhaps benign militarism is always a false conceit. As a chronicler, Fay Weldon has never been more brilliant or more ruthless about the folly of human relations. The Shrapnel Academy is a devastating update of the English country house novel, as savagely funny as it is topical.

Beverley may be close to ninety, but when her granddaughter announces her plans to leave home and husband for a glamorous actor, she’s already considering how she can stir up a little trouble. And so are the kehua outside. Quite how these Maori ghosts arrived outside the kitchen window is the origin of your writer’s tale. Suffice to say that everyone is haunted by the traumas of the past, that Beverley’s female bloodline carry a weighty spiritual burden - and that murder is at the root of it all....

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 traumas 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.

Annette and Spicer make a perfect pair. 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. The years of marriage shift and change: the rock of Annette's marriage may be sand.