A husband’s sudden death reveals some unpleasant truths: “Fast-paced black comedy . . . compulsively readable.” —Publishers Weekly
When Worst Fears opens, Alexandra Ludd has been a widow for less than seventy hours, her husband, Ned, former theater critic and stay-at-home father to their young son, Sascha, having died of an apparent heart attack. Alexandra, beautiful, adored darling of the London stage, is too overcome with grief to realize she’s been lied to: Ned didn’t keel over in the dining room, as her good friends told her. He died in their marital bed—and he wasn’t alone. At first Alexandra’s in denial, but when Ned’s mistress starts stalking her, she must face the truth: The man she loved was unfaithful. To add insult to injury, it seems everyone knew about Ned and dumpy, middle-aged, married Jenny Linden. A scathing exposé of infidelity, Worst Fears is Fay Weldon at her most fiendishly funny and cutting.
Novelist, playwright, and screenwriter Fay Weldon was born in England, brought up in New Zealand, and returned to the United Kingdom when she was fifteen. She studied economics and psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She worked briefly for the Foreign Office in London, then as a journalist, and then as an advertising copywriter. She later gave up her career in advertising, and began to write fulltime. Her first novel, The Fat Woman’s Joke, was published in 1967. She was chair of the judges for the Booker Prize for fiction in 1983, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews in 1990. In 2001, she was named a Commander of the British Empire. Weldon’s work includes more than twenty novels, five collections of short stories, several children’s books, nonfiction books, magazine articles, and a number of plays written for television, radio, and the stage, including the pilot episode for the television series Upstairs Downstairs. She-Devil, the film adaption of her 1983 novel The Life and Loves of a She Devil, starred Meryl Streep in a Golden Globe–winning role.