Four razor-sharp satires from a Man Booker Prize nominee who chronicles the battle of the sexes with “infectious, wicked glee” (Chicago Tribune).
The beloved author of The Life and Loves of a She Devil sends up marriage, 1950s London, fad diets, celebrity feminists, and Doctor Faustus, proving once again that she is “the social and sexual soothsayer of our literary times” (Company).
The Fat Woman’s Joke: A novel about sex, food, marriage, and the indignities of the 1960s. After a lifetime of gorging herself, Esther Wells has an epiphany: She and her husband are going on a diet. Dedicated foodies throughout their marriage, they are about to discover what happens when new passions supplant old.
“[Weldon is] an insightful and persuasive social commentator with an exhilarating mind.” —Susan Isaacs, author of Compromising Positions
Down Among the Women: In 1950s London, Scarlet was raised by her mother—a former radical who left her husband to be fiercely independent. But at twenty, Scarlet has already had one abortion, and is about to become a single mother to the child she’s naming Byzantia. Over the course of twenty years, Scarlet and her friends will discover it’s never too late to become the women they are meant to be.
“[A] stinging, brilliant comic novel.” —The Christian Science Monitor
Growing Rich: Carmen is sixteen when Bernard Bellamy spies her from the back seat of his big, black BMW. He’s just made a bargain with Mephistopheles: his mortal soul in exchange for the fulfillment of his desires. As time passes, inexplicable things happen to Carmen and her friends. But she’s determined to hang on to her soul, no matter what obstacles—or temptations—are erected in her path. Will she succumb? Only the devil knows . . .
“Glorious entertainment.” —Women’s Journal
Darcy’s Utopia: With her husband in prison for financial crimes, Eleanor Darcy is a media sensation. A self-professed “feminist of the socialist variety,” she grants an interview to a pair of journalists. During the course of their conversations, two journalists find themselves on a life-changing journey as Eleanor spins her vision of a future where money is abolished and “all men will believe in God and be capable of love.”
“A dazzling tour de force from one of Britain’s most inspiring and intelligent novelists.” —Cosmopolitan
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.