Auto da Fay
A Memoir
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book: The “wise and haunting” memoir from one of England’s most witty and beloved writers is “from first to last a wonder” (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post).
From life as a poor unwed mother in London to becoming one of England’s bestselling authors, Fay Weldon has crammed more than most into her years. Wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, antifeminist, winer and diner—Fay leads us through her peripatetic life with barely a role she can’t illuminate.
Born Franklin Birkinshaw in 1931, Fay spent most of her youth in New Zealand. With her glamorous father, a philandering doctor, generally absent, Fay’s intrepid mother and bohemian grandmother raised her along with her sister, Jane. Brought up among women, Fay found men a mystery until the swinging sixties in London where she became a central figure in the literary scene. She scraped along penning winning advertising slogans before she began to write fiction. As this memoir comes to a close, we witness the stirring of her first novel.
Riddled with Weldon’s fierce opinions, as well as her “stinging wit, jaunty prose, memorable bon mots,” this frank and absorbing memoir is vintage Fay. An icon to many, a thorn in the flesh to others, she has never failed to excite, madden, or interest. And now she has finally turned her authorial wit and keen eye on . . . herself (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers who think Weldon's provocatively clever fiction (The Bulgari Connection; Wicked Women; etc.) is also highly improbable need only pick up this frank, irreverent memoir to discover her own life has been far more strange and dramatic than any novel could credibly convey. All the characteristics of Weldon's fiction stinging wit, jaunty prose, memorable bon mots are present in this kaleidoscopic peregrination through six decades of picaresque adventures. The racy narrative begins with older generations of Weldon's family and continues with Weldon, her mother and her sister. Her family history on both sides is eccentric and troubled. Fay was christened Franklin when she was born in 1931 in England, where her mother had fled temporarily, leaving her adulterous husband in New Zealand. Eventually she took Fay and her older sister back to Christchurch, but the reconciliation didn't work, and they returned to England for Fay's secondary and college education. She was always drawn to the wrong men, risky behavior, chronic impecuniousness and even promiscuity. In addition to being routinely victimized by men, the women in Weldon's family were susceptible to seeing ghosts and succumbing to emotional breakdowns. How Weldon made her way as a poor unwed mother (in the 1950s, she lived in a house without heat, water or an indoor bathroom) through several bizarre relationships into a job as an advertising copywriter, is a riveting story; the book closes as she's beginning a career as a TV scriptwriter. This memoir will be read by some for the real "dirt" on a popular novelist, but it will last longer as a reflection of a time when feminism had not yet released women from the careless perfidy of feckless men. Photos.
