Mantrapped
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant, inventive and endlessly delightful memoir from Fay Weldon, one of our most respected commentators on sex, relationships and gender, that picks up where her acclaimed Auto da Fay left off.
Fay Weldon, one of our cleverest and best-loved novelists, returns to the rich material of her own eventful life in this stylish blend of memoir and fiction. Mantrapped is the continuing story of Weldon, writer, mother, daughter, sister, cook, campaigner, juggler of life, time, work and money. Weldon has been rich and poor, sad and happy, and throughout it all, well and truly mantrapped – but does not regret it one bit. From 1960s London (wild parties, no money) to 1970s Somerset (animals, wild parties, no money) Weldon has lived a life rich in adventure and courage. The things you regret, as she points out, are what you don't do, not what you do.
In this vastly entertaining book she argues that in a world in which the writer can no longer hope to be anonymous, it is devious, and indeed dishonourable, to keep yourself out of your own books. True to her word, in Mantrapped we get Fay Weldon at her most charismatic, perceptive and entertaining.
Reviews
Praise for Fay Weldon:
‘Fay Weldon is a national treasure.’ Literary Review
‘Prolific and provocative, Fay Weldon shines brightest in the league table of British women novelists.’ Time Out
About the author
Fay Weldon was born and raised in New Zealand. Her novels and short stories are released to great commercial and critical acclaim around the world, and she has also done significant work in the fields of television and film.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred review.MANTRAPPEDFay Weldon. Grove, $24 (320p) After many novels, screenplays, essays and an acclaimed memoir, Auto da Fay, Weldon now adds "reality novel" to her repertoire. Presented as a continuation of Auto da Fay, the book is a curious hybrid: something Weldon calls "novel and autobiography side by side, leaping from one to the other, but related." Its fictional protagonist is 44-year-old Trisha, who won the lottery, spent her fortune and is now relegated to niggling London poverty. Things take a turn for the worse when her soul exchanges bodies with that of young, handsome Peter. Now Doralee, Peter's life partner, is left to sort out an impossible situation, bemoaning the fact that there's no support group "for the transfer of your partner's being into someone else's shoddy, badly-looked-after body." These episodes are vintage Weldon: satirical, hyper-realistic and punctuated by biting truths. The autobiographical sections, interleaved with Trisha's story, are occasionally retreads of material from the previous volume, but mostly recount Weldon's further adventures as she juggles family and career. Weldon reveals the reality of her life behind her fiction, proving that "nearly everything you write about, you realize one day, has its roots somewhere in the past." Consider this the ultimate version of life and art imitating one another.
