{"id":7406,"date":"2017-05-15T11:35:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T11:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7406"},"modified":"2017-05-18T11:08:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T11:08:00","slug":"death-of-a-she-devil-by-fay-weldon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7406","title":{"rendered":"Death of a She Devil by Fay Weldon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Head of Zeus 6 April 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

352pp, hardback, \u00a314.88<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Zo\u00eb Fairbairns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you read Fay Weldon\u2019s 1983 novel The Life and Loves of a She Devil<\/em>? Do you remember the plot? If so, you can skip the next paragraph.<\/p>\n

Ruth Patchett is not beautiful. She knows this, and so does her husband Bobbo, who leaves her for the extremely beautiful romantic novelist Mary Fisher. When he calls Ruth a \u2018she devil\u2019, Ruth decides to live up to this. Using a mixture of diabolical magic, gender politics and low cunning, Ruth arranges for Bobbo to go to prison for something he didn\u2019t do, and for Mary to die of cancer.<\/p>\n

Which is where we come into Weldon\u2019s latest novel Death of a She Devil<\/em>. Mary Fisher is a ghost. Ruth, now in her eighties, has appropriated Mary and Bobbo\u2019s former love nest (the High Tower, a converted lighthouse on a cliff in Sussex), and runs it as the headquarters of the Institute for Gender Parity (IGP), of which Ruth, now Lady Patchett, is chairperson. Bobbo has dementia, and is kept in a locked wing on the top floor \u2013 the mad husband in the attic.<\/p>\n

So the scene is set for Ruth\u2019s final years. Ghostly Mary muses on how \u2018the women of the world\u2019, in demanding emancipation and refusing to endure \u2018the pain of love\u2019, have become \u2018a generation of millennials sunk into callously copulating digital gloom\u2019. Ruth for her part gloats that \u2018the world is as I want it: women triumphant, men submissive. \u00a0And Ruth\u2019s PA, a young woman named Valerie Valeria is, we are told, \u2018a power in the land\u2019.<\/p>\n

But which land, which world? References to the Mumsnet, HMRC, the Charity Commission and Harvey Nichols have a contemporary ring, but beyond that there is little context. The action of the novel rarely ventures outside a corner of Sussex. Has worldwide violence against women diminished? Has the gender pay gap narrowed? Do men take their share of domestic tasks? Have patriarchal religions relinquished their claim to control women\u2019s personal and sexual autonomy? I think we should be told.<\/p>\n

Detailed information \u2013 sometimes more than one would want – is offered on the practicalities of male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. \u2018No-one gets it cut off any more, dear child, except a few nutters determined to make a perverse point. It gets reassigned, peeled like a banana, turned inside out. Bits fitted here and there, no sensation lost.\u2019\u00a0 This is the option under consideration by Ruth\u2019s grandson Tyler\/Tyla as a strategy for dealing with women\u2019s alleged empowerment. The book is rather less informative about the nature of that empowerment. What is the status of the Institute for Gender Parity? What is its remit, what are its powers, what happens to people who disobey it? Not that there is much to disobey. IGP\u2019s main work seems to be to have meetings, submit accounts and organize ceremonial walks which get called off it the weather is bad.<\/p>\n

The original Life and Loves of a She Devil<\/em> is a hard act to follow, particularly as it didn\u2019t really need following.\u00a0 The sequel lacks its compulsiveness, its raw, recognizable emotions – sexual insecurity, jealousy, vengefulness.<\/p>\n

Whether you see the era from which Death of a She Devil<\/em> has emerged as a time of triumph or embarrassment will depend on what you ever hoped feminism would achieve, and how much progress you think has been made. Personally I think that in spite of setbacks we have done rather well, but I am still hoping for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Zo\u00eb Fairbairns<\/p>\n

References to the Mumsnet, HMRC, the Charity Commission and Harvey Nichols have a contemporary ring, but beyond that there is little context. The action of the novel rarely ventures outside a corner of Sussex. Has worldwide violence against women diminished? Has the gender pay gap narrowed? Do men take their share of domestic tasks? Have patriarchal religions relinquished their claim to control women\u2019s personal and sexual autonomy? I think we should be told […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7409,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7406\/revisions\/7409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}