The Heart of the Country
by Fay Weldon
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Suburban complacency and marital infidelity get their comeuppance in this black comedy by Fay Weldon When Natalie's husband, Harry, kisses her and their two children goodbye, departs for the office, and never returns, Natalie immediately blames herself. If she hadn't been cheating on her husband every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, he never would have left her for his secretary, a local beauty queen. Left penniless, without a husband, and eventually without a home, Natalie finds herself show more navigating the heartless, winding pathways of the state welfare system. There, she meets Sonia, who offers to shelter Natalie and her children. But Sonia has her own agenda, and her monstrous scheme culminates at the town's annual carnival, where she will take revenge on both men and women alike. Narrated from a mental institution by the seething Sonia, The Heart of the Country is a lusty, high-spirited, ultimately cautionary tale about the wages of sin and the pleasures of adultery, which always demand a price. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Fay had twenty years of writing behind her before this, her eleventh novel; the story of Natalie, the middle-class housewife, who has to learn to adapt to living on the lower stratum of society following her husband deserting her.
A very believable and accurate portrayal of life in rural Britain in the mid eighties. Might Fay update it for the present?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon
A very believable and accurate portrayal of life in rural Britain in the mid eighties. Might Fay update it for the present?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon
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Author Information
101+ Works 9,247 Members
Fay Weldon was born in Worcester, England on September 22, 1931. She read economics and psychology at the University of St. Andrews. She worked as a propaganda writer for the British Foreign Office and then as an advertising copywriter for various firms in London before making writing a full-time career. Her work includes over twenty novels, five show more collections of short stories, several children's books, non-fiction books, and a number of plays written for television, radio and the stage. Her collections of short stories include Mischief and Nothing to Wear and Nowhere to Hide. She wrote a memoir entitled Auto Da Fay and non-fiction book entitled What Makes Women Happy. She wrote the pilot episode for the television series Upstairs Downstairs. Her first novel, The Fat Woman's Joke, was published in 1967. Her other novels include Praxis, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Puffball, Rhode Island Blues, Mantrapped, She May Not Leave, The Spa Decameron, Habits of the House, Long Live the King, and The New Countess. Wicked Women won the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award. She was awarded a CBE in 2001. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1987
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Statistics
- Members
- 280
- Popularity
- 114,858
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.63)
- Languages
- 7 — Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Norwegian (Bokmål), Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 23
- ASINs
- 6
