Fay Weldon is a writer who understands the value of holding a grudge. Who can forget the years-long vengeance the heroine of her best-known book, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, exacted on her faithless husband and the romance writer who stole him from her? Even the physical extremes to which Weldon's scorned wife goes in order to remake herself in the image of her rival--including broken bones and plastic surgery--are worth it when she finally succeeds in destroying their lives. Horrifying as the conceit might seem in real life, Weldon's fictional revenge, whether served hot or cold, is a most tasty dish. In Wicked Women, a collection of short stories, Fay Weldon continues her one-writer crusade to ensure that bad people get exactly what's coming to them. But if Fay Weldon's stories are dark, they are also savagely satirical. In "Santa Claus's New Clothes," the children of a recently divorced father have some telling questions for their not-so-nice new stepmother, who also happens to be their father's former therapist. In "Not Even a Blood Relation," a mother turns the tables on her three heartless daughters in a manner sure to delight the reader. Weldon has a clear-eyed view of right and wrong--not for her are the concepts of no-fault divorce or infidelity without consequence--and in her fiction, if not in life, victims receive Fay Weldon's fierce brand of justice.


From Library Journal
In these 20 stories, some previously published, Weldon continues to pursue the themes of love, relationships, and family with the humor and poignancy that have made her other writings (e.g., Worst Fears, LJ 5/15/96) so engaging. Delivering these themes with varying degress of satire, sincerity, and subtlety, she offers intricate moments in the lives of defeated lovers, insecure cuckolds, perplexed offspring, daring widow/ers, keen children, and underdogs who overcome the oppression of love. Weldon brings together all facets of the relationship race with a unique mastery, using sharp and cultivated prose. Recommended for all libraries.-?Judith A. Akalaitis, Chicago, Ill.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Deborah Mason
With the year 2000 and its tidy string of zeroes reawakening our eternal longing for conclusive endings, Weldon's wrap-ups are eloquent and absolute. They are born of her belief in the dogged persistence of genetic bonds and in an uncompromising universe of clear rights and wrongs with their own inevitable consequences.


From Booklist
Readers can always count on Weldon's fiction for sophisticated entertainment, and her latest book, a collection of short stories, will not fail them. Although not especially known for her work in the short form, she shows her usual flair for pungent delivery of social commentary. Her frank, funny, and painfully truthful stories--piquant examinations of the annoyances and even dilemmas of contemporary life--feature imaginative contexts as framework and brilliant word choice as material. In one story, a past affair rears its risky head ("The past may be another country, but there are frequent international flights from there to here"); in another, the relationship between a man and his long-distance mistress has changed with the times, much like the eastern European city in which she lives (a thinly disguised Prague). In yet another story, a woman's dream conjures up her grandmother, with whom she shares her fears about her marriage. This marvelously enticing collection could well bring hesitant short story readers to an appreciation of the form. Brad Hooper


From Kirkus Reviews
The antagonists who populate these 20 stories are indeed very wicked (no surprise to readers of Weldon's 21 novels, including Worst Fears, 1996), but they're not always women. Both sexes and all ages come in for some merry tweaking by this master of sexual satire--making this outing a familiar pleasure for old fans and a thoroughly satisfying introduction for newcomers. When Defoe Desmond's middle-aged wife confronts him about his affair in ``End of the Line,'' she's covered with white ash (she happens to be cleaning the fireplace), and when she kisses him she leaves the ashy mark of death on his cheek. What better indicator that it's time for Defoe to bail out with the fiendishly seductive Weena Dodds, a New Age Times journalist itching to move into the manor house? Weena is certainly evil (she specializes in married men, taking pleasure in ruining their lives and leaving them begging as she moves on to greener pastures), but there comes a day when even the cleverest siren racks up one too many enemies. On the other hand, it's sometimes the man who turns out to be cold- blooded, as in ``Wasted Lives,'' whose film-executive narrator casually dumps his Eastern European mistress the moment he learns that she's pregnant with his child. In ``Valediction,'' an aging couple's children show their true colors by trying to push said parents out of the family home. And in ``Through a Dustbin, Darkly,'' a ghost works her vengeance by pushing her former husband's young second wife to burn down the house they live in. Every kind of evil that lurks in the heart is gleefully explored in all its permutations here, and somehow it all ends up very cheering--wherein lies Weldon's tremendous talent. Though the stories date from as far back as 1972, and in one or two cases their age shows, there are far more hits than misses in this unsentimental education in the war between the sexes. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Card catalog description
Here we meet nuclear scientist Defoe Desmond, a post Cold War irrelevancy, who is ineptly drawn to a youthful, wily, husband-stealing New Age journalist; three sisters named Edwina, Thomasina, and Davida, who are appalled when their increasingly wild mother finally gives their father a male heir - two years after his death; and Paula, who keeps so still waiting to hear evidence of her husband's adultery that she does not notice she's giving birth. Weldon's world is peopled with therapists who blithely destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers whose greatest cruelty is their detachment, and clever women navigating the perils and pitfalls of domesticity.


From the Back Cover
With Wicked Women, Fay Weldon has created an incisive collection of stories, turning her sharp eye on love, men, therapy, and the myriad of self-deceptions we depend on. Here we meet nuclear scientist Defoe Desmond, a post-Cold War irrelevancy, who is ineptly drawn to a youthful, wily, husband-stealing New Age journalist; three sisters named Edwina, Thomasina, and Davida, who are appalled when their mother finally gives their father a male heir-two years after his death; and Paula, who keeps so still waiting to hear evidence of her husband's adultery that she does not notice she's giving birth. Weldon's world is peopled with therapists who blithely destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers whose greatest cruelty is their detachment, and clever women navigating the perils and pitfalls of domesticity. Her wicked humor and seasoned wisdom are as evident here as always-and tempered by great compassion for the foibles of the human heart. "A bristling new collection of stories . . . Weldon has become one of the most cunning moral satirists of our time."-The New York Times Book Review "It is Fay Weldon's gift that the humor she writes seems to emerge unbidden from the weirdness of human nature and the inscrutable equation of the relationship between the sexes."-Chicago Tribune "A latter-day Aesop of wronged women, Fay Weldon specializes in satiric moral tales in which divine justice is granted to the abandoned wife or forsaken daughter. Weldon's wit is as sharp as ever."-People "Fay Weldon's comic shafts have never been better directed, her acid tone has never had more of the real Tabasco taste and her ironies have never been more outrageous. . . . [An] entirely satisfactory collection."-Star-Ledger Fay Weldon was born in England, raised in New Zealand, and received her M.A. in economics and psychology from St. Andrews University in Scotland. She is the author of twenty-two novels, including Big Girls Don't Cry, Worst Fears, Splitting, and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. She lives in London.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Here we meet nuclear scientist Defoe Desmond, a post Cold War irrelevancy, who is ineptly drawn to a youthful, wily, husband-stealing New Age journalist; three sisters named Edwina, Thomasina, and Davida, who are appalled when their increasingly wild mother finally gives their father a male heir - two years after his death; and Paula, who keeps so still waiting to hear evidence of her husband's adultery that she does not notice she's giving birth. Weldon's world is peopled with therapists who blithely destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers whose greatest cruelty is their detachment, and clever women navigating the perils and pitfalls of domesticity.

FROM THE CRITICS

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.

Library Journal

In these 20 stories, some previously published, Weldon continues to pursue the themes of love, relationships, and family with the humor and poignancy that have made her other writings (e.g., Worst Fears) so engaging. Delivering these themes with varying degress of satire, sincerity, and subtlety, she offers intricate moments in the lives of defeated lovers, insecure cuckolds, perplexed offspring, daring widow/ers, keen children, and underdogs who overcome the oppression of love. Weldon brings together all facets of the relationship race with a unique mastery, using sharp and cultivated prose. -- Judith A. Akalaitis, Chicago, Illinois

Library Journal

In these 20 stories, some previously published, Weldon continues to pursue the themes of love, relationships, and family with the humor and poignancy that have made her other writings (e.g., Worst Fears) so engaging. Delivering these themes with varying degress of satire, sincerity, and subtlety, she offers intricate moments in the lives of defeated lovers, insecure cuckolds, perplexed offspring, daring widow/ers, keen children, and underdogs who overcome the oppression of love. Weldon brings together all facets of the relationship race with a unique mastery, using sharp and cultivated prose. -- Judith A. Akalaitis, Chicago, Illinois

Chicago Tribune

It is Fay Weldon's enviable gift that the humor she writes seems to emerge unbidden from the weirdness of human nature and the inscrutable equation of the relationship between the sexes.

Deborah Mason