A Hard Time to Be a Father
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
‘Sparkling, sharply observing, insights delivered with a light touch that puts us in a good mood, however dark the comedy’ Spectator
Here are nineteen glittery new tales about the way we live now, as lovers, partners, children, parents. Or alone.
Stories of passion, desire, and necessary restraint;
of the near future, the recent past;
of old habits, new technology;
of won’t-be mothers and would-be fathers;
of houses, ancient and modern.
Stories, in fact, to enlighten us to the true and timeless nature of the human condition in this the new age of self-knowledge.
Reviews
Praise for Fay Weldon’s short stories:
‘Weldon’s stories pull no punches. There is always humour.’
Independent on Sunday
‘Bang up-to-date.’
Financial Times
‘Immaculately written, simple, stylish and swallowable whole. Her stories are so smart and sassy and multiply ironic.’
Scotsman
About the author
Fay Weldon is one of Britain’s leading writers. She was born in England and raised in New Zealand. Her novels and short stories achieve bestseller status around the world and are awarded great critical acclaim. Her film and TV work wins enthusiastic viewers by the million, world-wide. She lives and works in London.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The prolific Weldon (Wicked Women) is at her wry, risk-taking best in this broad collection of 19 stories. The tight and cohesive work is built on a matrix of recurring characters intersecting with variations on themes (betrayal and loss, truth and scandal). In her signature style, Weldon peoples many of these pieces with women who wreak catastrophe in ways that thrill the misanthropic reader: from the art critic in "Inspector Remorse," who seduces a painter's husband out of jealousy, to Stella in "Once in Love in Oslo," who tells the woman who stole her husband that she, too, is being cheated on. Scruples and sentimentality have no role here, and the result is pure fun: when Elspeth in "Percentage Trust" learns that her lover Aziz is not a mogul but a chauffeur, she simply joins him in his bunko life. Dark humor pervades, especially in choices of names: Damask Vale-Eden and her sisters Chenille, Velvet and Caledonia are characters in "What the Papers Say"; Jude Iscary is the aptly named protagonist of "GUP or Falling in Love in Helsinki"; the derivation of the names of former husband and wife Imp and Trixie in "Noisy into the Night" is hilarious. Only the title story tries too hard to be wry. A tale called "Pyroclastic Flow" works far better in this context than in Forever Sisters, a multiauthor anthology also in current release. As always, Weldon takes no prisoners.
