Fay Weldon
Criticism and Essays


Fay Weldon's Wicked Fictions Edited by Regina Barreca University Press of New England First American Edition, 1994 Also published in the U.K. by University Press of New England
From the book jacket: "If you come to any of Weldon's works, fiction or nonfiction, angry, you will be calmed; if you come to them complacent, you will leave outraged." - Regina Barreca John Irving has said that Fay Weldon "reinstates irony to its rightful, high place in literature." Indeed, irony is a trademark of Weldon's nineteen novels, six full-length plays, and dozens of short stories, essays, and miscellaneous pieces of social criticism. This major figure of contemporary British letters focuses her satiric but unrelenting scrutiny on the struggle against the myths and misconceptions that define and limit women in a predominantly patriarchal society. During the course of that struggle, Regina Barreca writes, Weldon's women "learn to be strong - or, more accurately, to recognize the strengths they have always possessed." This collection of thirteen essays and five Weldon pieces, four previously unpublished, is a wise and witty testament to her continuing ability to entertain, fascinate, and sometimes infuriate her readers. Contributors from a variety of critical perspectives explore Weldonesque themes: self-transformation, revenge, women's relationships with women, and the convergence of ineffable cosmic forces. Essays also examine ongoing controversies about Weldon's identification as a feminist, her politics, and her moral universe. Weldon's gift for mixing the profane and the sacred define the wicked tendencies of a writer who fills her work with images of transgression, subversive heresy, and hysteria but whose writings are, in the end, "humane, compassionate, sympathetic, and merciful."
Included in this book: Witch Weldon: Fay Weldon's Use of the Fairy Tale Tradition by Nancy A. Walker Slam Dancing with Fay Weldon by Sian Mile Classic Weldon by Margaret Anne Doody The Importance of Aunts by Rachel Brownstein "Say Your Goodbyes and Go": Death and Women's Power in Fay Weldon's Fiction by Elisabeth Bronfen Going to Extremes: The Foreign Legion of Women in Fay Weldon's The Cloning of Joanna May by Rose Quiello "Energy and Brashness" and Fay Weldon's Tricksters by Julie Nash Fay Weldon's Life and Loves of a She-Devil: The Speaking Body by Susan Jaret McKinstry They Should Have Called It "She-Angel" by Pamela Katz Fay Weldon: Leader of the Frivolous Band by John Glavin Journalist of the Heart by Robert Sullivan The Monologic Narrator in Fay Weldon's Short Fiction by Lee A. Jacobus It's the End of the World as We Know It: Bringing Down the House in Fay Weldon's Fiction by Regina Barreca The Changing Face of Fiction by Fay Weldon Of Birth and Fiction by Fay Weldon When the Writer Visits the Reader by Fay Weldon Infidelity by Fay Weldon On the Reading of Frivolous Fiction by Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon's Wicked Fictions
Edited by Regina Barreca
University Press of New England
First American Edition, 1994
Also published in the U.K.
by University Press of New England

From the book jacket:
"If you come to any of Weldon's works, fiction or nonfiction, angry, you will be calmed; if you come to them complacent, you will leave outraged."
- Regina Barreca
John Irving has said that Fay Weldon "reinstates irony to its rightful, high place in literature." Indeed, irony is a trademark of Weldon's nineteen novels, six full-length plays, and dozens of short stories, essays, and miscellaneous pieces of social criticism. This major figure of contemporary British letters focuses her satiric but unrelenting scrutiny on the struggle against the myths and misconceptions that define and limit women in a predominantly patriarchal society. During the course of that struggle, Regina Barreca writes, Weldon's women "learn to be strong - or, more accurately, to recognize the strengths they have always possessed."
This collection of thirteen essays and five Weldon pieces, four previously unpublished, is a wise and witty testament to her continuing ability to entertain, fascinate, and sometimes infuriate her readers. Contributors from a variety of critical perspectives explore Weldonesque themes: self-transformation, revenge, women's relationships with women, and the convergence of ineffable cosmic forces. Essays also examine ongoing controversies about Weldon's identification as a feminist, her politics, and her moral universe. Weldon's gift for mixing the profane and the sacred define the wicked tendencies of a writer who fills her work with images of transgression, subversive heresy, and hysteria but whose writings are, in the end, "humane, compassionate, sympathetic, and merciful."

Included in this book:

Witch Weldon: Fay Weldon's Use of the Fairy Tale Tradition by Nancy A. Walker
Slam Dancing with Fay Weldon by Sian Mile
Classic Weldon by Margaret Anne Doody
The Importance of Aunts by Rachel Brownstein
"Say Your Goodbyes and Go": Death and Women's Power in Fay Weldon's Fiction by Elisabeth Bronfen
Going to Extremes: The Foreign Legion of Women in Fay Weldon's The Cloning of Joanna May by Rose Quiello
"Energy and Brashness" and Fay Weldon's Tricksters by Julie Nash
Fay Weldon's Life and Loves of a She-Devil: The Speaking Body by Susan Jaret McKinstry
They Should Have Called It "She-Angel" by Pamela Katz
Fay Weldon: Leader of the Frivolous Band by John Glavin
Journalist of the Heart by Robert Sullivan
The Monologic Narrator in Fay Weldon's Short Fiction by Lee A. Jacobus
It's the End of the World as We Know It: Bringing Down the House in Fay Weldon's Fiction by Regina Barreca
The Changing Face of Fiction by Fay Weldon
Of Birth and Fiction by Fay Weldon
When the Writer Visits the Reader by Fay Weldon
Infidelity by Fay Weldon
On the Reading of Frivolous Fiction by Fay Weldon

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Fay WeldonCriticism and Essays

Fay Weldon
Criticism and Essays