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    The Fat Woman’s Joke
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    The Fat Woman’s Joke
    Unavailable
    The Fat Woman’s Joke
    Ebook170 pages4 hours

    The Fat Woman’s Joke

    By Fay Weldon

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    Fay Weldon’s first novel, a sharp and witty parable of the way people see themselves.

    For several weeks, Esther Sussman had lived in a sordid flat in Earls Court. During the day she read science fiction novels. In the evenings she watched television. And she ate, and ate, and drank, and ate. She had not felt so secure since she spent her days in a pram. It had been her husband’s idea that they should go on a diet. Together they would fight middle-age flab and feel young again. It was the diet that had made Esther leave home. The lack of food had made her see things very clearly and she had looked at her life – the daily dusting, sweeping, cooking, washing-up – and found it all pointless. She had not felt strong enough for marriage, and so she escaped.

    From the fastness of her Earls Court retreat Esther starts to recount the events leading up to her revelation to her friend Phyllis. ‘I suppose you really do believe your happiness is consequent upon your size?’ she asks. Phyllis does; Esther does not and triumphantly sets out to prove her point.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJun 28, 2012
    ISBN9780007395033
    Unavailable
    The Fat Woman’s Joke
    Author

    Fay Weldon

    Fay Weldon is a novelist, screenwriter and cultural journalist. Her novels include ‘The Life and Loves of a She-Devil’, ‘Puffball’, ‘Big Women’ and ‘Rhode Island Blues’. She has also published her autobiography ‘Auto da Fay’. Her most recent novel was the critically acclaimed ‘She May Not Leave’. She lives in Dorset.

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    Reviews for The Fat Woman’s Joke

    3.5/5

    16 ratings1 review

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    • 4/5
      This is classic Fay Weldon and absolutely hilarious. The book is almost entirely dialogue, witty and engaging. This is a reprint of a book written and published by Ms Weldon in 1967, so the desperate chatter of Esther and her friends and family must be taken in that context. Esther chooses to be fat and stoutly defends her right to make personal choices, despite the angst of her thin friend Phylis and her husband Allan. Allan has decided that both he and Esther must diet but during the diet their marriage becomes unraveled. Esther examines her life and finds it pointless and flees to a flat in Earl's Court. Here she eats in peace and resists the efforts of her friends and family to come home.