The Heart of the Country [Hardcover]

Fay Weldon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 1992

Fay Weldon, the acclaimed author of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (also a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr), once again tickles the myth of the suburban countryside in this invigorating romp through marital chaos and the battle of the sexes.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The strikingly inventive British author ( The Shrapnel Academy , The Life and Loves of a She-Devil ) delivers another biting satire on men's inhumanity to women. Weldon sets the scene in a small town where upper-class Natalie is left suddenly penniless after her husband scarpers with his secretary. Sonia, a woman similarly deserted but accustomed to coping with draconian welfare officials, gives Natalie and her children shelter as well as priceless advice. As local males lust for Natalie's body (and the posh house they assume will come with it), Sonia plans a twist on the annual town carnival, a demonstration hinted at throughout the narrative, and occuring at the novel's horrifying conclusion. This strong story about damaged lives is memorable as well for the lusty humor that makes all Weldon's books irresistible. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Natalie Harris, a young housewife and mother living a quiet life in southern England, finds out what the real world is like when her husband walks out on her. Vulnerable and naive, she slides all the way down the social scale until she is no better off than Sonia, the narrator. The world according to Sonia, who has ended up in a psychiatric hospital and tells the story retrospectively, revolves around a single theme: unscrupulous and corrupt men victimize women. Even depression is a male disease that women catch. This angry feminist novel is deftly told and sometimes funny, but more often it is mean-spirited and depressing, and the climax is nasty.Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (February 19, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 051707995X
• ISBN-13: 978-0517079959
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,709,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A concept too far, September 6, 2008

By 

Philip Spires "Author of Mission, an African ... (La Nucia, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heart of the Country (Hardcover)

For two thirds of its length, The Heart Of The Country by Fay Weldon is a brilliant, surprising, humorous, bitchy study of adopted and original rural life. Rural industries, agriculture, and yokel identity rub shoulders with antique dealers, long-distance commuters, owners of computer stores and benefit claimants. Pretty normal stuff, I hear you say. The book examines their interactions and relationships, especially how public virtue interacts with private vice.

Natalie, who was born with attributes of beauty and desirability, has suffered the confusion of many with her birthright. With the world available to her, she chose Harris, whose business acumen eventually matched his other skills. At the start of the book, he has just gone bust, but has not told his wife or family. He has also just run away with that bit of fluff he used to see when...

So Natalie, bestowed Natalie, is left penniless, mortgaged up to the hilt, carrying her husband's abandoned debt and still trying to provide for his children, whom, of course, he left behind. A pity, therefore, that the local nob she used to visit every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for a bit of light relief did not entertain an emulation of her husband's life change. There are limits to alliances, after all.

And then there's Sonia. Sonia has seen it all. She is living off the state. She is on the take, depending on your perspective. She is on family credit, the dole, the social, whatever. Natalie happens to splash her one day as she drives past on what petrol is left in the tank of the car her husband used to fund, just before the credit people appear to repossess it.

Sonia has analysis. She knows things. She can spot a person up to this, or doing that at a distance. Whether an antique dealer, a respected farmer, a man with a computer business, of even a man who drives an Audi with an eye for a floosie young thing flashing her thigh, she picks up the vibes, registers them, keeps them on file. She knows the ropes, and can spot where they have been tied. She feels she has been hung by each and every one of them several times. She's on the social and knows how to cook from tins. She runs the kind of household where she would experience surprise if introduced to the contents of her refrigerator. She's also a cynic, a closet psychopath with axes to grind.

If The Heart Of The Country had continued to explore these local, colourful and humorous rivalries, then the book would have been ultimately stronger. Unfortunately, Fay Weldon moves into other, broader, bigger issues, and has her local people voice their significance. She delves into agribusiness, diet and supermarkets. She examines economic and professional, rather than merely social integrity. She stops short of macrobiotic diets, but only just.

Eventually, the book becomes something of a mishmash of ideas it could easily and profitably ignored. Its original thrust of human beings being as complicated as human beings are in order to create, effect and endure consequences would have been much more powerful.
'

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite an eye opener, February 11, 2004

By 

William Tegner (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heart of the Country (Paperback)

If you're looking for a book about the more "traditional" aspects of the English countryside, with the vicar, the doctor, the local lord, the retired colonel and the elderly spinster who does welfare work in the village, this book is not for you. Try Elizabeth Goudge or even Agatha Christie. If you're looking for what seems to be an accurate description of rural low life in Thatcher's England, then you'll find this book interesting. It's a little wordy, but presented in an interesting way, and deeply feminist. It's the last aspect I found eye opening. It's not a fun book, being all rather gloomy, but well worth reading nonetheless.