The Life and Loves of a She-Devil - Softcover

Fay Weldon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340589353 ISBN 13: 9780340589359

Publisher: Trafalgar Square, 1995

Synopsis

Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact -- simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge. A blackly comic satire of the war of the sexes, LIFE AND LOVES OF A SHE DEVIL is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

This is not a book for everyone, but its admirers are vigorously enthusiastic. For example:
Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it ." . . a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
Or Rosalyn Drexler, who said on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, "It affords a scintillating, mindboggling, vicarious thrill for any reader who has ever fantasized dishing out retribution for one wrong or another."
Or Carol E. Rinzler, who wrote on The Washington Post Book World's front page, ." . . what makes this a powerfully funny and oddly powerful book is the energy of the language and of the intellect that conceived it, an energy that vibrates off the pages and that makes SHE-DEVIL as exceptional a book in the remembering as in the reading . . . . a small, mad masterpiece."

From the Back Cover:

'Fantastic...a carefully worked-out fable, satiric and finally bitter...Just about everyone in this novel is selfish and horrid, but Weldon tells her story with infectious, wicked glee. Just 'how' Ruth manages her revenge on Bobbo, Mary Fisher and the brats is what makes this malicious parable so palatable. And it's very funny.'--Chicago Tribune

About this edition

• Publisher: Trafalgar Square
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0340589353
• ISBN 13: 9780340589359
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256