This wild and tonic assortment of tales arrives like a flotilla
escorting the author's new novel, Life Force (see above), though
many of the stories included originally appeared in British and
American women's magazines like Lear's and Elle. Still, Weldon's no
garden variety lady's writer - she thrives on turning knee-jerk
feminism on its ear, subverting sentimentalism, and speaking in the
voices of some really awful people whose impossible behavior proves
perversely entertaining, and occasionally edifying. This time,
there's the gorgeous young grad student in "Ind Aff" (short for
"inordinate affection") who's intent on luring her prof away from
his wife ("How can he possibly choose her while I was on offer?");
but then a close look at his thinning hair makes her decide to move
on to greener pastures. In "Who Goes Where?" one of the world's
most selfish women, a second wife who won't let her husband see her
hated stepchildren on Christmas Day, suddenly becomes nicer - and
much less interesting. Weldon's idea of a Thanksgiving story
compares an overworked Hispanic maid with her brutally demanding
boss lady, Honey Marvin ("...thin as a praying mantis; hold up her
mean little hand to the light and you could see right through it");
and in "A Visit from Johannesburg or Mr. Shaving's Wives," a
profligate husband who's caused the suicides of three spouses
articulates certain truths about marriage that are both bitter to
swallow and wise. Even when Weldon turns her attention to an
undeniably sympathetic type, like Ruby, the struggling single mom
in "In Search of Mother Christmas," it's with a glint in her eye,
since Ruby gets tangled up for life in her own maternal instincts.
Huzzah for Weldon, then - despite a few antiseptically contrived
offerings herein. She's still one of the funniest, smartest
iconoclasts around. (Kirkus Reviews)
Illuminations from the dark side. Mothers and children, lovers and
wives, carers and betrayers. Some characters struggle, some dance
or fly, some try suicide or murder. They may resort to reason and
unreason. All of them make choices. Deft, spare and incisively
intelligent, Fay Weldon's collection of short stories is short
through with her needling moral sense and her vibrant humour.
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