Book description
This is the story of women when they were wimmin: of that blossoming in
seventies England of hope, freedom, equality and sisterhood; and of what
happened next…
Big Women is the tale of Medusa, a feminist publishing house founded
one balmy evening at sedate Chalcot Crescent in a flurry of argument,
peace-making and naked dancing.
The novel is everything and more we expect from Fay Weldon, not just a
work of literature but an energising drop into the pool of social
complacency - a feisty, no-holds-barred portrait of four women's
attempts and failures to create a new life. There's Layla, noisy,
darlingish, high-profile. Alice, the academic, the philosopher, the -
eventually - Glastonbury witch. Nancy: boring, sensible Nancy, the only
one with any business nous. And Stephanie, the one who leaves her
husband and children to embrace politics, men, other women… Their
stories are intertwined with twenty years of all our lives - blissful,
rage-filled, treacherous, redemptive. Previous reviews include:
“Weldon writes as if she were Virginia Woolf and Roseanne Arnold joined
at the hip. She is literary, well-read, totally in control, sharp as a
needle and off the wall.”
Mirabella
“The best woman writer in Britain.”
Woman
“Fay Weldon has talent to burn.”
New Musical Express
“Her fertility of inventions transforms the incredible into the irresistible.”
Mail on Sunday Fay Weldon was born in England and raised in New
Zealand. Her work is translated into most world languages.
