Life and Loves of a She-Devil [Mass Market Paperback]

Fay Weldon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1990

Ruth Pratchett discovers her husband is having a passionate affair with romantic novelist, Mary Fisher, and is so seized by envy that she embarks on a course of destruction which brings her an amazing reward and those around her their just deserts. By the author of "The Cloning of Joanna May".

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

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A tour de force: a macabre, fast-moving moral fable' -- The Times 'More audacious and striking in design than anything that has gone before ... carried out with such dash and glitter' -- Times Literary Supplement 'Rousing ... The fun grows steadily blacker and wilder' -- Guardian 'A savage, sadistic even, but beautifully and compellingly written satire' -- Sunday Express --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

This is not a book for everyone, but its admirers are vigorously enthusiastic. For example:
Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it ". . . a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
Or Rosalyn Drexler, who said on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, "It affords a scintillating, mindboggling, vicarious thrill for any reader who has ever fantasized dishing out retribution for one wrong or another."
Or Carol E. Rinzler, who wrote on The Washington Post Book World's front page, ". . . what makes this a powerfully funny and oddly powerful book is the energy of the language and of the intellect that conceived it, an energy that vibrates off the pages and that makes SHE-DEVIL as exceptional a book in the remembering as in the reading . . . . a small, mad masterpiece." --This text refers to an alternate Mass Market Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345014863
• ISBN-13: 978-0345014863
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,650,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most astutely fashioned tale of revenge since Moby Dick., February 3, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Upstate NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life and Loves of a She Devil (Mass Market Paperback)

I think too many readers & reviewers have overlooked the sheer scope of Ms. Weldon's attack in this, my favorite novel. More than just a roadmap to the vengence of one woman against the man and mistress that cause the disintegration of her life, Ruth by the end, becomes the avenging angel of all who have ever felt unwanted by a world consumed with the transient virtues of beauty, taste and wealth. She decimates, with the depraved passion of a Bosch-like demon, all of the "sensible" notions of love, mother-hood, respect for beauty and humanity that society foists upon the less attractive of its people, specifically its women. By the end of this novel her attack broadens beyond the simply banal cruelties of man and begins to rattle the very gates of heaven itself to force a confrontation with Nature and God. Ruth's gripe is with God and not man, for she sees Him as the real culprit behind the suffering she, and all women, must endure. Her ultimate victory, and the perversity of its coming is summated in the last line of this book(In my opinion, one of the best final lines ever written). One of the sharpest minds writing today, Ms. Weldon brings a lucidity and vigor to her portrait of the modern beauty-obssessed culture, that is by turns bitingly humorous and strangely touching; for all of the bile that she unleashes throughout the novel, Ruth is a character that we can fundamentally claim as one of "our" own. I think that this "our" goes way beyond the small group of feminist women who have had Weldon claimed as one of their own. For me she is the truest torch-bearer for anyone who has ever felt not beautiful, intelligent, graceful or genteel enough to earn respect in our culture. A true masterpiece, this novel is Weldon at her delicious best and is worthy of any comparison to that other great novel of revenge, "Moby Dick". Is Ruth Patchett the modern-day equivalent of Ahab? You decide.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fay weldon is a genius!, October 25, 2000

By 

rony Hacohen (Lehavim, Israel.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life and Loves of a She Devil (Mass Market Paperback)

I find this book complete genius and one of the best feminist books I have ever read. Ruth's hideous looks are her husband's excuse for treating her like an animal, and eventually leaving her for an ultra-feminine and successful woman. Ruth can see Mary Fisher's shallow and materialistic success and character, and she knows that they are what society respects the most. Ruth doesn't, and shouldn't accept this cruelty, for she knows that there is no justification for her husband's and society's ways, and she has to get even. Ruth hasn't got anything too lose, she doesn't have any money, respect or public status, therefore she can plan her revenge without any regrets. Ruth's revenge on her unfaithful husband Bobbo is clearly about getting back at society, and it's ridiculous demands of women. Ruth gives up motherhood, love, humanity, and even her own body in order to show the world and Mary Fisher and Bobbo in particular, that beauty, respect and popularity can be achieved by anybody.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a dark, feminist fairy tale, November 4, 2006

By 

Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Life and Loves of a She Devil (Mass Market Paperback)

"The Life and Loves of a She-Devil" is the second book by Fay Weldon I have read , after "Remember me", which I had reviewed - rather unfavorably. I liked it much more than "Remember me".

The novel is about Ruth, an ugly, big woman, a housewife with two children, who is left by her husband Bobbo for a tiny, pretty Mary Fisher, a successful writer of trashy novels.

Ruth is devastated, but undergoes a mental transformation and sets off for revenge... All her actions are concentrated on destroying Bobbo's new life (and Mary's, too) and getting him back. The plan requires a lot of effort and suffering, and using other people. Because of all the people involved, almost each social group is depicted and criticized with precision.

The whole story is presented in a convention of a fairy tale (an adult fairy tale!), and thanks to this trick the most absurd actions sound almost plausible.

The novel is funny, easy to read, but at the same time tackles serious matters and makes the reader think, sometimes being scary in its frankness (after all, Ruth's plan is not what all the betrayed women do, but it certainly is what many of them want to do). And what more can the reader want?