This image is the cover for the book Fat Woman's Joke

Fat Woman's Joke

Bestselling author Fay Weldon delivers a scathing satire about society’s obsession with female weight and beauty in the 1960s, as relevant today as when it was first published

After a lifetime of gorging herself, Esther Wells has an epiphany: She and her husband, Alan, are going on a diet. Dedicated foodies throughout their marriage, they are about to discover what happens when new passions supplant old. Deprived of the meals he loves, Alan, an advertising man by trade and a novelist by avocation, promptly begins an affair with his secretary, Susan. But his fantasies are all about food. With her marriage to Alan in jeopardy, Esther moves out and commits a betrayal of her own. Narrated by Esther through a series of flashbacks, The Fat Woman’s Joke is a novel about sex, food, marriage, and the indignities of the 1960s. Infused with Fay Weldon’s trenchant wit and illuminating observations, it’s a satisfying, deeply felt tale of one woman’s revenge upon the world that has oppressed her.

Fay Weldon

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.  

Open Road Integrated Media