Wicked Women
Stories
-
-
2,5 • 2 notes
-
-
- 1,99 $US
-
- 1,99 $US
Description de l’éditeur
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Wicked Women brings together twenty tales that lay bare the minds and hearts of men, women, and children
Victims, liberators, blackmailers, healers, and ghosts—they’re just a few of the fascinating men and women you’ll meet in this stellar, boundary-defying anthology.
From a heartless lover to a therapist who’s exposed for being a child hater, Weldon’s characters search for meaning, betray their vows, take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, or get pushed out of the family manse by their grasping offspring.
Whether she’s depicting a child’s reaction to the chaotic lives of her parents, or envisioning a terrifying futuristic society, Fay Weldon wields her prolific pen like a sword. In a pre-apocalyptic world where nothing is sacred, Wicked Women reveals the infinite ability of men and women to wound, to grieve, and to love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
These 20 saucy tales prove that the worst varieties of human pretension and evil are often the most entertaining, especially in the hands of an expert vivisectionist like Weldon (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil). Here, she skewers a cross section of despicable yet grimly fascinating types: the spineless husband, the talentless yet self-adoring artiste, the parasitic therapist and those who presume their sexual confusion is interesting to others. Each is held up to Weldon's strip-search scrutiny and ribald wit. The few sympathetic characters are generally women who mistakenly think they can pursue a career, raise children and have a loyal spouse. In "Santa Claus's New Clothes," the temperamental but beloved matriarch of a big family has been peremptorily ousted by the husband's therapist and new wife. An "astral" sort, the therapist blathers on endlessly about her sensitivity. However, by the end of a disastrous Christmas dinner, her New Age veneer no longer conceals the fact that she's a control freak extraordinaire, a cuckoo in the nest. While hilarious, this story is also very poignant and, like all these juicy tales, acutely observant of the newest strategies in gender affairs. FYI: Atlantic Monthly Press will reissue Weldon's most recent novel, Worst Fears, in paperback in June.
