Customer Reviews

She May Not Leave

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you listen on CD, the narrator is amazing! She was also the narrator of the "spa" book. VERY talented! I think Fay Weldon is a tremendously talented writer, and having someone narrate her writing who has such a perfect delivery is pure pleasure. I almost cried when it ended.

I got this book by accident--I was on vacation in England and grabbed some British women's magazine off the rack in the gas station, thinking I would have a little mindless reading for the train ride. Well, in England a lot of magazines include free gifts, and this book was shrink-wrapped to it.

I expected this to be a silly romance novel, on the level of the ones Cosmopolitan prints excerpts from. I had never heard of Fay Weldon. So I was quite surprised to find a very, very darkly humorous and well-written novel.

The key is that NONE of the characters in this are sentimentalized at all. While Martyn and Hattie and Frances et. al. really do love each other, they are predominantly self-interested. Martyn is more concerned with the future of his political journalism career than with his partner's slow breakdown, Hattie is more concerned about being able to go back to work than with the obvious play Agnieszka is making for her common-law husband and child, Agnieszka is more concerned about getting to stay in England than by the damage this could cause Kitty in the long run, and even Baby Kitty, Weldon points out, loves best the person who attends to her needs the most.

That said, because the characters are so unlikeable (or very uncomfortably likeable), it's a hard novel to get into. Many people will be put off by the rather cavalier way mothers in three generations of this family leave their young children in the primary care of others. The mothers, simply put, aren't "motherly."

As to the people who claimed that the ending was a cop-out...uh, didn't you read the very beginning of the book? It was building all along...

Fay Weldon is something of an aquired taste. Words like "ascerbic" and "brisk" have been used about her, and those are accurate. I think Weldon annoys quite a few who read her. She annoyed me considerably when I first read her years ago. Then I realized that Weldon aggravates by not writing what we expect--she doesn't write to make us happy, but to tell the truth. Weldon's choice of subject matter is the eternal love/war between the genders, and, just as importantly, how families create the main characters whose lives we follow. In Weldon's world, men and women put up with a great deal from each other, until the day a crack in the relationship becomes a fissure, and life goes on, but in a far more confusing and unanchored fashion.

"She May Not Leave" is about a young professional couple who hire a nanny/housekeeper, and realize how dependent on her they become. They go to ludicrous lengths to keep the talented Agniewska, telling themselves they'll never find another like her. But woven into Hattie and Martyn's story is a meta-story, a story of a family of women going back generations who just can't mother very well or very long. The relationships between mothers and daughters are distant, or outright dysfunctional, but grandmothers and granddaughters get along and support and love each other. The story of this unusual matriarchy is as interesting as the surface "main story." The denouement comes as a surprise to the reader, even though the reader realizes, later, that there was a family history hinting at what might come...

As well as delineating male/female relationships and familial relationships, Weldon has many telling observations about current English/Western culture and mores. Yes, she's "ascerbic," but it's gratifying to read truly adult fiction--a bit wounding, a bit harsh, but overall truthful, and with gleams of humor along the way.

Hattie and Martyn, "committed" to each other, but not married, get an au pair for their baby, Kitty. The au pair, from Poland, is a genius at cooking, soothing the baby, laundry, and belly-dancing. She's a dream come true. When it looks like she will be deported back to her country (which is actually the Ukraine; she deceived them; in fact, she seems to be a pathological liar), Hattie has a weird idea that may work to keep the au pair with them in England. Completely ridiculous book. I could not relate to anyone, except maybe the baby. The book is omnisciently narrated by Hattie's elderly grandmother, wife to a man in jail for dealing drugs. Both Martyn and Hattie's families are dysfunctional, and no one seems to be raising their own children; mothers foist them off on aunts or grandparents. Everyone has children out of wedlock. I get that it was a satire, but it was weird, off-the-wall, and completely leftist. Whose world actually looks like this, anyway?

"When the maid is mistaken for the mistress it is time for the mistress to ask the maid to leave."

Agnieszka comes to live with Martyn and Hattie as an au pair. The family dynamic changes, bit by bit, shifting the daily domestic and child-rearing responsibilities from Hattie to Agnieszka. Kitty, at six months of age, adores her new au pair. Hattie, an editor with a book publisher, looks at Agnieska as a Godsend; Hattie can go back to work after a six-month leave of absence rather than the full-year leave she initially requested.

Fay Weldon has woven countless subplots, offering the reader insight into political and social mores, and the complex relationships between family members and friends. As the narrator is Hattie's grandmother, Francis Watt, we see another generation's views on all of these issues, as well as family history.

Deceit is a quality known by many. It is a quality that Weldon weaves into her tale, offering the reader brief glimpses of the truth, while daring you to believe that the truth could be so devious. Will Martyn and Hattie do anything to keep Agnieszka, even in the face of the Immigration Service? Agnieszka originally states that she's from Poland. She is actually from the Ukraine: "two miles to the west and everything would be different for us."

Hattie's career in book publishing has taken a sudden turn in the road. A man with Tourette's Syndrome has a book he wants published by Hattie's firm. The major objection to this book is the suggested yet unprintable title. Another question arises when the author shows up unannounced in the lobby of Hattie's office. Expecting him to begin yelling streams of profanity, the office workers don't know what to do with him. Hattie suggests that he doesn't even have Tourette's Syndrome; he is just writing from the perspective of a man who does.

There are many gems in SHE MAY NOT LEAVE. Weldon has given the reader countless opportunities to anticipate the final result. It's so subtle and so polished, yet so innocent. Weldon totally sneaks up on you!

--- Reviewed by Marge Fletcher

This is one of the funniest books I ever read. In fact, I loved it so much that I went on line to order it for a friend, when I saw the previous poor reviews on this website. Briefly, this book is not meant to be realistic in any way! It is a farce. Satire. Anyone who picks it up expecting a naturalistic novel about life as it is for most people will be terribly disappointed.

It is a very English book, and many Americans won't like its wicked humor. The protagtonist is a young, modern professional mother who can't wait to get back to work and get her life back, and so hires an eastern European woman to be a live-in nanny. It's not giving much away to say that the nanny encroaches on the the lives of the protagonist and her husband, but in entirely unpredictable ways. (Even the title is ambiguous: is someone being forbidden to leave, and who? Or does it express fear that an unwelcome interloper may never go? It's never clear.)

I loved this book's shock ending. No, it is not realistic. But it is hilarious and memorable. And the very last revelation in the book is so unexpected, and does rather explain the strange denoument. A brilliant satire. Give it a try.

I agree with the above reviewer in that finishing this book actually made me really angry. I've never been compelled to write a review on amazon before, but this was the most ridiculous ending I've ever encountered. Without giving it away, it completely negated the preceding 275 pages of character development for one of the main characters. I can't imagine it passing muster in a freshman English writing course, much less a publishing house. I found the grandmother's narration irritatingly self-riteous throughout the novel as well. The only thing that kept me reading was the engaging storyline between Hattie, Martin, and the au pair, but the ending blew that for me. The politics behind it are questionable as well: the tired old villification of the working mother, the sexually available au pair, the husband who just can't help himself, etc. Oh, I could go on but I won't. Just take my advice and don't waste your time on this ridiculous book.

You have to have Fay Weldon's perspective to enjoy her books. Serious Americans don't seem to have it much.
This book may not be as great as a lot of her others and it's even hard
going at times, but if you're into Fay Weldon like most women, you'll appreciate it - especially the ending which is what it's all about.
It just took too long to get there!

I cannot believe I actually read this entire book. While I will not reveal the entire story to you as the reviewer before me did, I will say it is a total waste of money. The book is so out of touch with reality that I wonder exactly how it ever got published. The ending is so unbelievable that I wondered who this writer actually knew to get this book published. If I did not dislike people who "retell" books in their version, I'd tell you exactly how awful it is. Some people just do not understand the difference between your opinion of a book and PLEASE TELL ME THE ENTIRE STORY so I don't have to buy the book. Sorry I sound so angry, I'm just so disappointed in this book and the money I wasted on it.