The Cloning of Joanna May [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Fay Weldon (Author), Norma West (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993

A scintillating, exuberant, ruthlessly acute observer of her time, author Fay Weldon leaps into a future where individual identity is infinitely more elusive. In The Cloing of Joanna May, she has created an enthralling novel about male control and female power, and a new age of women for whom almost anything is possible.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Joanna, a beautiful and bored 60-year-old, discovers that her ex-husband cloned one of her eggs 30 years earlier and that the four resulting clones are currently undergoing crises brought on by men. "With characteristic antic energy, Weldon offers another penetrating look at our urges to sex and parenthood, love, power and revenge," said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Now in her 60s, attractive Joanna May has lost her husband, ruthless executive Carl, to divorce, and her lover to death, apparently a victim of her husband's hitman. Alone and childless, Joanna tries to regroup and in doing so makes an extraordinary discovery: Carl had four eggs removed from her reproductive system and "cloned" when she was 30. The four resulting women, implanted as embryos in different women, eventually meet up with one another and with Joanna. An odd premise, indeed. Weldon has a deft hand, and although her characters are mostly stiff and unlikable (particularly Carl, who survived a grim childhood), the story moves along briskly. This would not suit the taste of many fiction readers but is not without appeal. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/89.
- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Isis Audio; Unabridged edition (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1856954870
• ISBN-13: 978-1856954877
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,088,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Why does Fay Weldon have a publisher?, November 9, 2010

By 

San Fernando Curt (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cloning of Joanna May (Paperback)

I started reading a copy of this I'd found in an airplane seat pocket. Really! The cover looked as if it had been gnawed half off. After an agonizing slog to halfway through the book, if occurred to me the cover hadn't been damaged by a pet or teething infant. I think the previous reader had chewed into it with furious anger at the fact Weldon gets paid royalties to write such spectacularly BAD crap. Subsequently, I saw a BBC adaption of the novel and, on film, the book's ridiculousness is even more obvious - explosive, even - as some really fine actors try hard, very hard, to create believable characters out of the wacky, infantile cartoons Weldon has given them. I watched simply because I'm a Brian Cox fan; always brilliant, he came off best as the doggie-raised tycoon. In book form, I could never picture him; he remained a cypher, not really human, kind of a talking blob, a vapor. None of the characters are really flesh and blood; they're painted canvas drops with a rickety tape recorder behind rasping out their "conversations". And Fay Weldon is one of the BEST writers here in the forlorn first years of the New Millennium. Our standards have fallen off a cliff. If there was a minus-star rating, I'd give it that.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Lives of Joanna's Clones, May 21, 2010

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Literary Media's "Reviews" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Cloning of Joanna May (Paperback)

I'd gone along to the BBC Radio 4's Book Club in Sep 08 with my copy of the novel in hand.

Fay Weldon had remarked on this novel to an author friend sitting next to her, in the hospitality room, where we waited before going into the studio, saying how she'd realise how different the characters appear, from a reader's perspective and that she didn't recognise them! She went on to say, it was the book she liked writing and reading most.

The author articulates a sense of precision in how she wanted to portray the main character Carl May, his ex wife, Joanna and her siblings, four very different characters, whose lives we follow, with interesting consequences.

Jane, Julie, Gina and Alice are Joanna May's clones, which he first reveals to Bethany his young lover, after the divorce. Yet this revelation makes Carl feel vulnerable and this puts Bethany at risk of being disposed of. at some point yet, he did think about cloning her, to create the perfect woman who, 'looked, listened, understood and was faithful.' (Ch 16.p78) but thought against it as it would have taken too much time and effort.

All four girls turn out differently: Jane achieves academic qualifications and lives an independant life in spite of having known her boyfriend Tom, since 16 and a spate with another, during their 6 yr breakup; Julie, a Secretary, marries but has an affair, seeing her husband is always on business trips and she feels lonely; Gina is more the `wild child' of the four; by 13, she was already hitchhiking, then pregnant at 18 and marries a wannabe pop star/garage mechanic, after a disturbing childhood, brought up by her grandparents and punished by teachers for her unruly behaviour at school. With one child and possibly a result of a one-night stand, life continues for her and her husband, who thinks the child is his. Alice, the fourth clone, likes her own company more than men or marriage and has numerous rencontres with men but never wants to settle to a life of being a wife and mother.

The surprising factor is, the four clones come from one single egg, taken from Joanna without her knowledge and implanted in the wombs of four women from different backgrounds.

Dr Holly and Carl May are the creators of these 4 human beings and Carl looks to the past now to see whether an ancient Egyptian body had enough cells for living DNA to be nuclei transferable and this time Holly expresses doubt at finding such possibility, thinking more of the ancient curses of the Pharaohs than the experiment itself.

Having seen documentaries on Egyptologists who've died of cancer, another in a car crash and another in a suicide bid, the character Holly brings to light such mysteries yet the voice of reason is seen in Carl's dismissal of such incidences as `the merest, most vulgar of superstitions' (Ch18.p95); this is a sub theme which is a light relief from the already intriguing lives of 4 people who the readers are introduced to and become familiar with. The suspense is in the timing of the meeting with Joanna and the consequences, which is very surprising.

The novel is vibrant in the theme, the characters and the sub plot and the ending, a twist, which for Joanna is a deserving finale to a nondescript start where we see her in her house, wanting things to go back to what they were before the divorce but not finding her true 'path'.

2.0 out of 5 stars Going to work on a curate's egg, November 21, 2008

By 

J. C. Mcknight "Jon McKnight" (Plymouth, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cloning of Joanna May (Paperback)

Fay Weldon is, whether she likes it or not, most famous for writing the advertising slogan "Go to work on an egg".

Having read The Cloning Of Joanna May, I wish Fay had gone to work on her prose instead.

At first it was merely irritating; then the professional editor in me wanted to get hold of it and turn it into something rather more polished and readable.

The plot was original, exciting and interesting. There were some extraordinary observations and insights into the human condition. But her writing style left a lot to be desired.

It wasn't as if Fay was telling the story through the voice of an inarticulate narrator and thereby limited herself. It's just that her sentences and paragraphs could have flowed better, been less jerky, or simply have benefited from more judicious punctuation.

Admittedly Fay Weldon is a famous writer and no-one's heard of me, but that doesn't let her off the hook. However good the plot and her own insights, we readers deserved better than that.

So while it's well worth reading, it's harder going than it needs to be. As Fay's so fond of eggs, it's fitting that this should be a curate's egg of a book: good in parts.